257 replies to this topic

[Sir Thursday]

You can increase the size of your demesne by increasing one of your leader traits...I think it's Stewardship(?). One way of doing that is to marry someone with high stewardship, as you get half of their score added to yours. You can also switch to Gavelkind succession, which increases the demesne you can hold. Of course, then you have to split the territory between your heirs, which can sometimes be problematic.

ST

[Underfoot]

Heer Donderdag, on 19 June 2012 - 05:48 PM, said:

You can increase the size of your demesne by increasing one of your leader traits...I think it's Stewardship(?). One way of doing that is to marry someone with high stewardship, as you get half of their score added to yours. You can also switch to Gavelkind succession, which increases the demesne you can hold. Of course, then you have to split the territory between your heirs, which can sometimes be problematic.

ST

Oh, that makes sense (about the Stewardship), thanks! My character is still a kid, so he still has a lot of low stats.

[Sad King Billy]

Also, never place your wife/hubby in your council. (S)he already gives you half her stats, and your council also adds half their job-stat. If the spouse is in the council you only get the boost once rather than twice. Even a horrible 2-points-in-stewardship is better than your spouse. Unless you require loyalty more because your court is a festering pit of snakes.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Keep in mind that you will be getting -10 modifiers for each territory over your demesne limit. Also, when you are over your limit, there is a chance that your territories will develop bandit rings and such.

If you want to increase your stewardship and are still a child, have yourself educated by someone with both Midas Touched and a high S skill. Oh and make sure this person is of your primary ethnicity, and ambitious is good as well (it's good if you can pick it up from them as it gives +2 to all traits, but likely any lord who is ambitious will be a problem). Do not be afraid to send yourself outside of your kingdom for a good tutor - use the people search to filter. Of course, inside your kingdom is better, to ensure that you don't switch nationalities.

[So1ar]

does it get easier as you go along? i downloaded the demo and watched the tutorials last night and my head was about to explode. also, did anyone else name their council members after GoT's characters? I saw the master of spy and said"well...hello varys"

[Underfoot]

So1ar, on 20 June 2012 - 09:56 AM, said:

does it get easier as you go along? i downloaded the demo and watched the tutorials last night and my head was about to explode. also, did anyone else name their council members after GoT's characters? I saw the master of spy and said"well...hello varys"

It definitely gets easier, but it takes some time. I had no idea what I was doing when I started my first 3 games, and they all failed miserably. I still don't know much about a lot of the different aspects of it. The learning curve is pretty high, but it's definitely worth getting over it.

[Shokifer]

Sometimes I wish my games on CK2 would go on forever. Shame they stop at the 15th century.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

There are "no limit" mods.

[a wooden chair]

Picked up Sword of Islam yesterday and dabbled some. The Islamic playstyle and features are still very intimidating for me though because I am not used to them and hate getting my ass whupped. Plus my wives keep killing one another to become the primary wife.

Edited by a wooden chair, 27 June 2012 - 10:07 AM.

[Alcibiades]

This game is $10 on Amazon currently. It activates on Steam as well. So I just picked it up. Looking forward to climbing the difficulty curve!

[Underfoot]

a wooden chair, on 27 June 2012 - 10:03 AM, said:

Picked up Sword of Islam yesterday and dabbled some. The Islamic playstyle and features are still very intimidating for me though because I am not used to them and hate getting my ass whupped. Plus my wives keep killing one another to become the primary wife.

Have you had a chance to play it some more? Is it worth buying, do you think?

[a wooden chair]

I want to say yes, but I am unsure if you get all the nice combat traits and new features from the 1.06 while not having it? Both factions of Muslims seem very boom and bust, far less stable than managing an Orthodox or Christian realm. Personally I think it is worth getting even if I rarely do play that side of it because I think Crusader Kings 2 is worth supporting them. From useless DLCs to decent sized expansions with new features. I'll try to play it a bit more, but a HRE multiplayer game is consuming most of my playtime.

They even put in the patch notes how they tweaked inbreeding code just to help out the Game of Thrones mod. You don't see that level of interaction with many other modding communities.

Oh oh, and I've noticed Iberia gets steamrolled like never before since I purchased it. Is that Sword of Islam-centric, or simply 1.06? I'm assuming all of it is as of 1.06 and the DLC is just changing some 0's to 1's in order to make it playable for me.

Edited by a wooden chair, 02 July 2012 - 05:55 PM.

[Underfoot]

Yeah, things have definitely changed with the 1.06 patch. Characters have new combat modifiers, and there's at least one new construction feature. I haven't had a whole lot of time to play it though.

I think I'll probably end up buying the expansion at some point. CK 2 has such immense replay value that $10 is an easy investment to make.

[Peasant Rebel Leader]

I bought the game today on the Steam Summer Sales and I'm completely drowning. Way too complex, or rather, wow, the learning curve is high with this game I guess I need a bit more time to really "get it"

[Seli]

Peasant Rebel Leader, on 20 July 2012 - 04:12 PM, said:

I bought the game today on the Steam Summer Sales and I'm completely drowning. Way too complex, or rather, wow, the learning curve is high with this game I guess I need a bit more time to really "get it"

You'll be fine. Start a game somewhere quiet, Ireland is a good spot, and just play around a bit. While the game does not exactly take you by the hand and explain everything it does allow for a quite passive style of play, where you can look at what is happening and only act when nudged.

[Peasant Rebel Leader]

I have nothing against complexity, but it needs to be accompanied with a good User Interface. And there's where Crusader Kings 2 lacks severly.

I did start a game in Ireland and was succesfull in annexing a few counties, so that's interesting game play. But f.e. I was stopped a long time before declaring war because I raised my levies first and then tried to declare war. That's just annoying, especially when the translation tells you to do exactly that.... The German Translation btw. is horrible, wrong syntax, wrong terms, sometimes even an other content than intended. I do have to switch to the original language now I guess. But that's just a very bad business decision by Paradox. If you want to sell the game in other countries, a correct translation is really essential or you will have very bad publicity...

But then it went on, so I had married one of my kids to a Welsh princess and could exert a claim. As I wanted to try that I did declare war, hire the mercenaries I needed and wanted to put them on a ship. But I couldn't. Although my navy was large enough, I couldn't combine it to host the whole mercenary troops at once, and I couldn't split the mercenary troops. So although I had a large enough navy and a large enough host, I couldn't conquer that damn county and had to make peace... the money for the mercenaries down the drain and my vassals like me less now.. All because the UI was bad and the micromanaging is too high.

Take the whole army management. the movement is intransparent and especially the combining into one large force is very complicated. I have to click them all through and the combine button, but since my armies are all named the same (Munster), I lose oversight over what is where and who is who. Really nerveracking.

There's also other instances where the micromanaging takes over. For example when I have to marry off all my cousins and courtiers and so on. Why can't I just tell them to search themselves for a suitable bride/groom?

I just feel like this game would have benefited a lot from an expert in streamlining, not the content, but the actions you take. The navies f.e. are  totally unnecessary, as they are just troop transports, right? (I was on the same tile as a welsh navy that time, but they didn't fight). So why have them at all? Make troop transportation a function of the harbors built in your cities, or so... Take Civilization 5 where they did just that, all land units can embark and move on the ocean, it helps the AI (somehow), takes less clicks, you don't get annoying problems like me above, etc. ... Even if it's a God Game, you don't have to do all yourself...

That said, I will continue playing, since as I have now learned how to declare war efficiently and not to try oversea invasions, better put that to use

[Seli]

It is probably the best interface for a Paradox game in history, although I have had 10 years to get used to them. But yes, there is room for improvement.

I don't know about the translation, I only ever played their English versions.

Some of your problems seem to come from not knowing some interface tricks. The easiest way to organize armies and navies is select a couple by drawing a square around them (keep left mouse button depressed), then order them to move to the same province, once there it is only one button to merge them. Fine-tuning armies is easier if you start from this big stack.
I believe navies have to be out at sea for the armies to be able to move onto them, but at least it is a method that works.

You don't actually have to arrange marriages for anyone but your direct family. At times it can be convenient to do it anyway (spread your dynasty around), and at times a courtier can ask to be married (but that can be ignored). But in either case as long as you go through the portrait and the ring/marriage button there you immediately get a list of people willing to accept the marriage.

The navies at the moment are a bit useless as they are indeed pure transports, perhaps they will get some more depth in a future DLC/patch. In the previous game navies appeared magically if someone paid for sea-transport, and that had its own set of problems.

[Galactus]

Quote

I believe navies have to be out at sea for the armies to be able to move onto them, but at least it is a method that works.

That or you can click the "embark" button when they're at port, but IIRC this only works if you have one stack of both.

[Seli]

Galactus, on 22 July 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

That or you can click the "embark" button when they're at port, but IIRC this only works if you have one stack of both.

Thanks for the addition, I am still used to the methods in the older games and as a result I will bypass the newer innovations in Clausewitz.

[Datepalm]

I don't understand anything. It took me ten minutes of google to figure out how to get my troops to move. Why do the turks keep invading me? (well, aside from being in the northern Caucases) Why am I excommunicated? I'm fighting the turks, dammit. Why will no one marry my useless offsping? What does the council do? Why will the Georgians only give me like anti-prestige points rather than ALL THEIR LANDS when I have defeated them in every battle? Why?  Anyway, totally having fun.