Crusader Kings II - Page 31

On July 09 2012 10:41 sharkeyanti wrote:
So my recent inheritor of the crowns of Lotharingia and France is having some problems. I had instituted elective monarchy in Ireland, but decided to change my primary to England, with Wales being my other kingdom. I really needed the primogeniture succession so I could inherit Lotharingia and France from gramps. Well, my Irish/English/Welsh king dies, the inheritor (Nicholas) is only a pretender to the crown of Ireland. I finish one of my grandpa's wars and then go to claim my Irish crown. Some duke rebels right near the end of the war, and I think it will be okay. But because my Frankish grandpa had raised his levies for so long in France and Lotharingia, I have scores of vassals just ready to hate me and this one-county duke having rebelled during the war wasn't my highest priority.

You can imagine what happens next. Duke after duke declares war, counties declare war. No amount of money could appease my vassals (which are many). Mind you, the first time this happened I waited until after the Irish war to quell the first rebel. After seeing all my work go to shit, I decided to reload from the previous Jan 1 save. This time, I make sure to finish the rebel before the Irish war ends. This way my Irish vassals can't revolt against me, not yet being my vassals of course. Well, Duke of Alsace rebels. I try to quell his rebellion with only personal levy and mercs, but still the chain of rebellion happens.

This would of course not be a problem if I could create the Empire of Britannia, but as I detailed in an earlier post Scotland got lucky as shit on an early holy war and made de jure all of NW Africa and most of Iberia. I can't really give away my crowns and just press issues down the line can I? I've only got like 20 years left on this playthrough, so I'm not too concerned about the end result. I just don't want to face 20 straight years of rebelling vassals, as it would take forever to finish.

Any advice would be appreciated.

On July 09 2012 11:52 rezoacken wrote:


So what is your question ? :O If you want the empire of britannia you need 4 kingdoms I believe (and most of the british isles). About scotland, usually kingdoms that go far south and get muslim territories end up collapsing or in rebel wars. You have to seize the moment, forge claim/get claimants etc before and when the time is right make your claim:
-Try to have a decent force, dont forget mercenaries to boost you
-Watch for when scotland is in a holy war or has rebelious vassals
-Use the realm tree to compare your force to the kingdom of scotland
-When the king of a kingdom dies and a child inherits it is at its weakest.

You can also try to inherit parts of scotland, make a good mariage and stab a few people (with plots or direct assassinations). If you manage to inherit from scotland's biggest vassal it will make you a lot stronger and scotland a lot weaker.

As for rebellious vassals... well dont waste your money sending gifts unless its necessary. Use your minor titles to make low risk vassals not revolt and just let High revolt chance revolt. Just prepare for it, I think you can even park your troops while waiting for them to revolt. Then imprison, revoke a title and give it to a random courtier.

As for avoiding revelion, you cant avoid all of them thats just how the game is. But try to not get too much opinion penalty for feudal vasals (avoid raising feudal taxes, try to not make tyranny, dont get more than 2 duchies, dont get excomuniated etc).
Get 2 full duchies as your demesne. Preferably those with the most holdings. Give everything else to vassals but try to give one county per vassals (one of them will be a duke but dont give him the full duchy). Raise crown authority to medium so that they dont fight each other (otherwise you risk one getting too big). Try to see if one gets big through marriages and inheritances see if you can avoid that through assassinations.

For inheriting kingdoms, each kingdom has its own succession laws you have to make sure you have the right laws in everyone of them.

On July 11 2012 02:06 Simberto wrote:
Why do paradox titles always try to make me hate them when i play them for the first time? I am playing in scotland, do some islander wars, inherit some random stuff in germany from my wive and am on my best way to create the kingdom of ireland, making me probably the strongest force in Brittannia, and on a good way to create the Empire there.

Sadly, apparently marrying people to other kings is a BAAAAD idea. Somehow the king of France gets a claim on the Kingdom of Scotland, which is EVERYTHING I OWN. Half my dukes start fighting the other half for no apparent reason, greatly reducing the amount of troops they are willing to give to me. I still manage to somehow fight him off a bit with the help of mercenaries, and destroy the main army of 15000 frenchmen. Then, he suddenly calls in noone else but the Kaiser of the Holy Roman Emperor into that war. I thought i might gain an ally by marrying familymembers into other kingdoms, but no. I only get the two strongest forces in europe allying to steal my kingdom. I don't even understand why the HRE would have a part in that, since it instantly makes France the sole strongest power in Europe, but he probably did not think that far.

Oh, and of course none of the guys i married EVER helped me in any wars at all. I think next time i will just murder every single member of my family, even when they don't try to murder me, they only marry assholes and give them a claim on my WHOLE KINGDOM. How is that even fair. When i win a war, i get one county, or MAYBE when i am lucky on Duchy. And that guy whose father married some sister of my mother 50 years ago can just claim my whole kingdom, and noone cares, and the damn HRE, who is literally the last person in europe who should want a strong France even helps him. I so hope France slaughters him directly after this war.

On July 11 2012 04:10 Simberto wrote:
Well, yes. But a dude just stealing everything i worked hard for with the most dickish move in history, and leaving me at NOTHING (seriously, i went from owning Scotland and half of Ireland to a duke under the french bastards rule with about 3 counties or so. And all of that because i made the mistake of marrying the king of france to one of my relatives. I now know that that is not something you should do, apparently you should only ever marry useless idiots from faraway so they don't steal your shit with the most retarded CB ever.

I have no problem with losing something when i make a mistake, however, i have a problem with losing EVERYTHING when i make a mistake. In EU3, that dude would have gotten maybe 5-6 provinces from me. In CK2, he gets everything, just because i let him marry one of my relatives 50 years ago. Game over. Can't fight HRE and France at once, can't keep them off my shores because my fleet can't fight, can't give them anything that is not my whole kingdom to end the war.


I know that i won't continue to play that game, i have absolutely no interest in being in a far worse position i was when i started, and as vassal to that bastard, and all of that because the HRE decided to do the most stupid thing in history. Maybe i will start an other game, now with the knowledge to never marry anyone remotely threatening to any relatives, ever. But at the moment i am pretty annoyed, to be honest. One wrong marriage leads to instant game over apparently. No warning, no demands, no diplomacy. Just "I am king of scotland, fuck you." "Oh, you beat my army? Well, when I marry people, they help me instead of stealing my throne. Meet Mr. "I got 30k more soldiers" HRE"

On July 11 2012 05:18 Sub40APM wrote:
If you can raise a largeish enough army you can exploit the fact that you are on an island to smash one army after another. Just load up your whole force onto your fleet and then float around. As soon as you see an isolated enemy army you unload, kill it and run away. Because land traffic is so much slower than loading/unloading you can have a relatively small force slaughter much larger armies piece meal. And because Scotland is small they cant have large stacks of units besieging your stuff without attrition.

But ya I guess I agree with you that its odd how often France and HRE become allies. Especially since France holds a portion of Flanders the HRE would probably want...

On July 12 2012 13:33 Simberto wrote:
Hm. I have a question. Why do my vassals keep fighting each other? I have reached maximum crown authority, and it very clearly said that they should not be able to fight each other, or actually they should not be able to fight wars at all.

Sadly, they don't seem to care about that in the slightest, and still run through my empire, sieging my provinces, and making my troops kill each other through infighting. It is annoying enough that in each generation there are 2-3 ambitious dukes, whose ambition appears to be living the rest of their lives in jail, but at least those rebellions end fastly. The internal wars do not. They appear to be completely unable to ever get anything done. They just fight and fight and fight, and rarely they siege a province because after all the fighting they don't have enough troops to siege anymore. And even if they get a province completely sieged, the war still does not end. Two of them have been fighting for at least 20 years now, and there is no sign of it ever ending. And i can't even intervene, because apparently i am not allowed to meddle in internal affairs of MY realm.

Hm, maybe i should just assassinate those guys, that ends wars, right? I know some of my wars ended because either my king died, or the enemy got killed giving me an instant victory.

Edit:

Also, is there any benefit from giving kingdoms to your vassals when you are an emperor? So far i just kept those to myself, and gave out smaller duchies, so that if they rebel, they are not a large threat. The fact that i now have lots of cool titles is a nice sideeffect.

On July 12 2012 13:33 Simberto wrote:
Hm. I have a question. Why do my vassals keep fighting each other? I have reached maximum crown authority, and it very clearly said that they should not be able to fight each other, or actually they should not be able to fight wars at all.

Sadly, they don't seem to care about that in the slightest, and still run through my empire, sieging my provinces, and making my troops kill each other through infighting. It is annoying enough that in each generation there are 2-3 ambitious dukes, whose ambition appears to be living the rest of their lives in jail, but at least those rebellions end fastly. The internal wars do not. They appear to be completely unable to ever get anything done. They just fight and fight and fight, and rarely they siege a province because after all the fighting they don't have enough troops to siege anymore. And even if they get a province completely sieged, the war still does not end. Two of them have been fighting for at least 20 years now, and there is no sign of it ever ending. And i can't even intervene, because apparently i am not allowed to meddle in internal affairs of MY realm.

Hm, maybe i should just assassinate those guys, that ends wars, right? I know some of my wars ended because either my king died, or the enemy got killed giving me an instant victory.

Edit:

Also, is there any benefit from giving kingdoms to your vassals when you are an emperor? So far i just kept those to myself, and gave out smaller duchies, so that if they rebel, they are not a large threat. The fact that i now have lots of cool titles is a nice sideeffect.