Crusader Kings II

Panda with issues...

Panda with issues...

Well-Known Member
Does anyone have this and know how to play?

I've done the tutorials, but it seems like all that happens is I wait for peple to grow old and die, and try to save enough gold for a castle, which could take, well, a very long time.
 
Nanor

Nanor

Well-Known Member
I've played a fair whack of it. Effectively the end goal is to get your prestige as high as possible for your dynasty. You do this buy owning as many provinces as possible. I'm sure you've come across casus bellis or CBs. You get CBs for having a claim on a piece of land which allows you to declare war on a nation for a certain province.

It's kind of annoying sometimes. Say, as England, you declared war on Ireland for the province of Connacht. So you march over the Irish Sea (AS YOU'RE SO FOND OF DOING ARRRR) and take every province Ireland has. Well Ireland is screwed and all she can do is sue for peace. You'd think that the entire island of Ireland would be annexed but nope! England only gets the province she originally started the war for and the rest is returned to Ireland.

There are ways to have a claim to, say, the Kingdom of Ireland, wherein you'd get the whole kingdom. This can't be done by using one of your ministers to create a false claim as this only works for provinces. To do this generally requires a whole mess of marriage so that when you have a son he'll have a claim to the Kingdom and you get a CB from that.

You can also invite people to your court who have a claim on a province/kingdom or what have you. You can then declare war on behalf of this person to give them the province. You need to be very careful with this as if you do wage a war and give them the province, they don't answer to you. You need to make sure they accept becoming your vassal.

The more provinces you have the more money you'll make, the more things you can buy, the more prestigious you'll be.

It's a complicated game but it's quite the time sink, if I do say so myself.

EDIT: Oh! If you're going through marriages in the hope of building an empire, look out for matrilineal marriages. I can't remember exactly how they work but they'll mess you up if you're not careful.
 
Xarlaxas

Xarlaxas

Active Member
Yeah, you're trying to improve the prestige of your house as much as possible, which is done by taking personal ownership of as many kingdoms, empires, territories etc. but also giving them to your relatives, that helps too.

Matrilineal marriages are when the woman's side of the family inherits titles etc. instead of the man, so, you want to be marrying your daughters off matrilineally, but never your sons.

War is basically a matter of who has the most troops wins, for the most part.

It's all about the politics, trying to build up claims to lands, killing off people to improve your claims, and so on.

The game also has multiplayer, which looks like a lot of fun, but I'm on terrible net right now. :(

Ireland is a pretty good "easy" starting area, supposedly, Connacht I think (the land of the Ur Brians), work on conquering all of Ireland then creating the kingdom of Ireland, then murder some English people. >.>
 
Nanor

Nanor

Well-Known Member
Play as the Uí Neills. Apparently my family were the blacksmiths and armourers for them, so you know you're gonna win a load of wars.
 
Xarlaxas

Xarlaxas

Active Member
Develop the buildings in your province, that way you can increase levy sizes, invest in a retinue for your lord, hire mercenaries if need be, but only if you have enough money to sustain them or they will betray you, and start pursuing just causes for war or send your chancellor(?) out to fabricate claims to nearby territories, that is expensive though, so save up.
 
Nanor

Nanor

Well-Known Member
The amount of troops you can levy is based on the laws and how much the head of a city/castle/bishopric likes you. As you start initially you can maximise how much they like you by granting them honorary titles.
 
Xarlaxas

Xarlaxas

Active Member
I wouldn't call it the sims, I'd call it a medieval society simulator more than anything else, and, unlike the sims, you can take over the known world. :p
 
Xarlaxas

Xarlaxas

Active Member
Having not played the Sims since I was around 12 or so my knowledge of the game is rather dated, but I didn't think the Sims had any aspect of medieval countdom/dukedom/kingdom/empire building at all.

The focus is more on politics than in total war, and combat is very basic, even with the stuff added by the expansions (which you should get, except for Sunset Invasion or whatever it's called), but I wouldn't compare it to the Sims at all. :p

Wikipedia refers to it as a "Grand Strategy Wargame" apparrently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_strategy_wargame
 
Panda with issues...

Panda with issues...

Well-Known Member
Xarlaxas said:
but I didn't think the Sims had any aspect of medieval countdom/dukedom/kingdom/empire building at all.
Click to expand...

Neither does this apparently! (only slightly in jest)

As far as I can currently see, it's a game about watching numbers slowly go up, managing some people's needs, and then dying.
 
Xarlaxas

Xarlaxas

Active Member
That would probably be because you started too small in scale. Begin with a kingdom, like Scotland, or England, and then try it out. Or go for one of the small Spanish Kingdoms. By the end of my first play-through I had created the Spanish Empire and conquered a little bit of France, having started out as the two-province Basque kingdom.
 
Nanor

Nanor

Well-Known Member
I think the appeal of the game is zooming out over Europe and seeing how that particular playthrough contrasts from actual history. That and my innate desire to see the Kingdom of Ireland spread across Europe. I got an odd buzz when, through some strange inheritance and marriages, several provinces through central France were now part of Ireland.
 
Xarlaxas

Xarlaxas

Active Member
Yeah, playing with history is always fun. I really enjoyed, but have yet to finish a playthrough of the game where I, starting in Spain as one of the small Islamic kingdoms, conquered Spain, Britain, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and Italy, converting Rome to Islam, as is my wont. I may need to get back to that sometime soon and finish conquering Europe and executing my decadent male relatives.
 
Ki!ler-Mk1

Ki!ler-Mk1

Active Member
I think I may give this game a try, with 75% off atm.

Which DLC should i grab right off the bat?

For the time being i've grabbed the 10 with 75% off.

And slowly picked out the songs of faith and Albion :)

http://i.imgur.com/TYSVgl.png

Missing: Ruler Designer, Songs of the Holy Land, and the Russian packs.
 
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