Crusader Kings III - The Sequel You Have Been Waiting For

[jztemple2]

Update is now available, looks like just over a gig download. However, it's lunch and "spend time with the wife" time so I won't be playing till at least mid-afternoon.

[jztemple2]

[jztemple2]

With the new update and the DLC I started a new game with a new ruler, Jarl Haesteinn, Count of Montaigu. He has all of one county which has one holding, so we're pretty much starting at the bottom.


I might be a small count in a lonely county, but I've got a freaking large army. Check out those "special soldiers", three thousand more troops if I need them.


The game tells me I can form a Hybrid Culture, but doesn't really tell me how I can achieve the requirements to get there. Besides, I'm in a land overflowing with Frenchmen, so I decide to switch to their culture and faith.



With that taken care of, I go off on my first war and just like that, I have a second county.

[jztemple2]

I've already found one issue caused by a mod, so I'm removing all mods till I have it confirmed that each is compatible.

UPDATE: These are now listed as compatible:

• Extended Outliner
• Nameplates
• Biography

Not yet updated:

• Knight Manager
• Fullscreen Barbershop
• Ultimate Tooltip - Framework
• Configurable News Feed

[Baroquen]

Ha! I thought I'd peek into this thread before loading up CK3/RC and starting my new game to see if anyone had played a little yet. I shouldn't have been surprised that jztemple2 is all over it! I'm going to browse the patch notes, and watch that 10 tips video before launching after dinner. And the list of compatible mods was really helpful. Thanks!

[jztemple2]

My campaign is going slow... starting with only one county might not have been the best decision . I captured Leon on the tip of Brittany and also Cornwall, and I've now also added a county adjacent to my starting county.


The big problem is, as always, money. I actually went into the red by over two hundred but was able to dig out of that hole, but I'm so poor I can't even afford a physician search and me (my character) just getting over pneumonia! I did spend a lot of that money getting a claim on the kingdom of Brittany, which is good, but right now I barely have enough troops for parity. Happily in the past couple of years my wife has given me two children which means I'm out fishing for alliances.

[jztemple2]

Sometimes it's important to think about the line of succession, especially when your character is 70 years old. I have one son who is a decent chap, but stands to lose two of the four counties I would pass on to him because of the Partition laws. Instead they would go to his five year old brother. Well, not now....

[Isgrimnur]

What could possibly go wrong with disinheriting a covetous 5yo?

[Hrdina]

What could possibly go wrong with disinheriting a covetous 5yo?

I hear the towers in Brittany are pretty tall and don't have good railings.

[jztemple2]

Gosh, it's a small world. I'm currently getting a casus belli against the county of Devon so I can invade it and attach it to Cornwall so I can become the Duke of Cornwall. As you can see, the current ruler of Devon is being held in jail somewhere...


...and who is the jailer? Why, it's Count Adalrich of Kassel, who just happens to be betrothed to my daughter! Fancy that

[jztemple2]

And so, when I declare war against the ruler of Devon, I invite as an ally my future son-in-law. And as soon as he agrees to be my ally, he also notices that he has the ruler of Devon in his jail. We're won the war!

[jztemple2]

My Duke Haesteinn grows old, but he is happy. In twenty-five years of rule he has won five wars and gone from one county to ten. And he has prepared for his older son to take over all his domains since he has disinherited the younger son. Now he hopes to live long enough so that he can afford to create the Duchy of Cornwall and eventually the Kingdom of Brittany.

[jztemple2]

I've created my second dukedom, the Duchy of Brittany, but it took most of my gold. I'd like to create the Kingdom of Brittany and start my royal court, but that will take over 400 gold... why doesn't the pope like me enough to give me gold?

[jztemple2]

And a few more years, then finally at the beginning of January 899, I create the title of Kingdom of Brittany and I now have a Royal Court!


Oops, it's a bit empty now.


And pretty bare bones regarding amenities. Still, it's a start. And now to hold court!

[Baroquen]

Ok, so I've started my new game (with the Royal Court expansion) in a similar location to jztemple2. Rather than pick Jarl, I picked Rurik of Novgorod. He's just a tribal ruler in the Russian lands and territories. He's got a pretty good batch of troops to start, and a ton of wars that he can initiate.



(Hope I did that image "right". The code/link looks similar to how jztemple2 posts his pics.)

So things are off to a great start, but I have a problem with Minsk (which you can barely see to the south). My first attempt with Rurik, I married my heir off to one of the daughters on Minsk, creating an alliance (and claims) with that territory. All was good, until I was called into their war, and was stomped badly.

So, I actually restarted, and this time, married my heir off to a relative nobody to avoid that situation from happening again. However, Minsk remains a thorn in my side. While most of the counties and territories surrounding me have paltry military forces, Minsk has enough allies that they are a potential problem. Before going to sleep last night, I saved and declared war on Minsk, hoping to be able to beat their forces before the allies jumped in. But I missed my chance, and the allied armies combined, and I got stomped again.

So I'm not sure how I'm going to proceed. Ultimately, I'm looking to transition from a tribal government to a feudal government. But that's a long way off. I also am working toward establishing Russia as a proper country. But that's a long-term goal too. So I think I'm going to continue to pick off territories, juggle vassels, and build up my dynasty and see what happens. Rurik's only 45 so we'll see what happens over the next decade or so.

[jztemple2]

While most of the counties and territories surrounding me have paltry military forces, Minsk has enough allies that they are a potential problem.

That's the problem I had with my starting location, with a giant East Francia just to my east and no doubt eyeing me as easy pickings. I addressed it partly by getting some allies, to make me less of a target. Finally I took a gamble and targeted the ruler of East Francia for an assassination attempt. There wasn't a very good chance of it succeeding, but by sheer good luck I was able to bump off the ruler with no one wiser . Their kingdom split in two and they lost all their allies. While eventually they were recombined (no doubt at someone's expense ) the newly created Kingdom of Aquitaine was weak enough for me to grab off one county.

But it is by marriage that alliances are best made. My ruler's elder son, who stands to gain all the ruler's titles since I disinherited the younger son, managed to get divorced from his first wife. Then I found a new wife for him and ally for me, but she died in childbirth and so I finally found a third wife for him, this time the daughter of the King of Aquitaine . So now I have an alliance with him and we can concentrate on taking down the newly formed Kingdom of France.

[jztemple2]

So I held my first court session:


Three petitioners to see me. The first is an envoy from the King of France who wants an exile from his country returned, since the exile has claims on two counties in France. After some deliberation I tell the envoy that the exile will stay with me. I didn't realize that while the exile could stay as my guest, to have him remain as part of my court would cost me 165 gold, something I don't have . Later the King of France would send me a nasty note and I lose some valuable points with him. Lesson learned, always figure out the costs before making a decision.


Next up, the City of Saint-Malo has the dancing disease (doesn't anybody screen these people?). I can either send her away or I can have my physician or my Archbishop handle the case. Since my physician already loves me and the Archbishop give me money if he is happy with me, I go with the latter to handle the issue.


Finally one of my favorite knights wants to be my champion. While that's not a bad idea, I figure I could use him as a bodyguard. So he gets that job. And with that the court session is over...


...oh no, it's not. One of my other knights is peeved because I made that one knight a bodyguard. If I make this new complainant a bodyguard as well my first bodyguard will be pissed off and who wants a pissed off bodyguard? So I make him my court jester instead

[jztemple2]

I thought with the court session over I'd be able to get some rest, but no. As I sit on my throne and contemplate the vast scale of world events, my physician and another of my knights are arguing. They share a lodging and can't stand one another. So I can spend some gold to upgrade the lodgings of the court, giving them both a room I guess. Or I can spend some of my prestige to find them new roommates. Both of these solutions are beneath me! I tell them to go fix their own problems . Now they are grumpy at me!

[Baroquen]

Well Minsk is on the back burner for now. I'm working on adjacent counties, mainly looking to lock up Bjarmaland to the northeast. Given that unspoken plan of attack, it's funny that neighboring chieftain Ulljoi decided he would like an alliance.



Not looking for entanglements, I instead debated whether to declare war on him now instead of later. It seems he already allied up with his neighbor to the south, making them comparable to my army. While not as dangerous as Minsk, there are easier targets like Biarmia. I hope to have that wrapped up in a year or so.

But in the meantime - domestic problems have arisen. While Queen Ingrid delivered two sons, both were sickly and one has already passed away. We'll see how long Yaroslav lasts. To soothe Rurik's pain, he found his soulmate (and competent Spymaster) in Gyoa. And later was seduced by the lusty reveler Eeva. While there have been a couple of bastard children running around - there haven't been many problems. Until now...



Rurik decided to keep both women close, despite the stress in would put upon him. A trip to the brothel eased his stress, and now the Rakish king rules on....time to finish off Biarmia and pawn the title off on somebody insignificant.

EDIT: Rurik caught the Lover's Pox because of his shenanigans. Oops!

EDIT2: The Lover's Pox turned into the Great Pox! Double oops! (And I just granted my new land/title to my Royal Physician as a reward for his service, not realizing he'd leave his position. So now I'm scrambling for another physician. Triple oops!)

[jztemple2]

Dames, it's always something, isn't it?

Meanwhile, the feud between my bodyguard and my new court jester intensifies. The text description in the image is priceless and makes buying the DLC all worthwhile . I make the very Solomon-like decision that instead of throwing him out the window, just beat him up a bit. I suspect that this isn't over between them.


My queen of many years has died, but my king isn't exactly broken up over it; "Not one day too soon!". A real sweetheart my guy.


And of course with a dead queen, we need a new one! How about a nice 25 year old Italian girl for my 87 year old ruler?


With a new court, I need artifacts. Well, I don't need artifacts, but what the heck!


But even in this, there is a problem... my king is happy that soon all this will be his son's problems.

[jztemple2]

Time to hold court again, once every five years. The first petitioner is from Cornwall and is peeved that the local ruler is preventing a local monument from being restored. The ruler, a baroness, say the monument is offensive to the French; we are now French of course. I can spend money to complete the restoration or build a new monument that will be acceptable to both sides, but I don't have the money. The monument stays unrestored, the peasants are pissed off.


The next petitioner says that they are going to refuse to pay taxes because of some reason I don't really care about. So I direct my Marshall to ambush the petitioner and his group when they leave. The petitioner is now in my dungeon


Finally, some good news for a change. Alwen, my knight of long standing, wants to pay me 250 gold to buy a holding in my county of Montaigu to put up a castle there. Pay me! It's been so long since someone didn't want me to pay them. Of course I get him to bump up the price to 350 gold . Now where's that guy who wanted the new monument

[AWS260]

You're making me want to re-install CK3.

[jztemple2]

You're making me want to re-install CK3.

Do it. Do it!

Even if my king isn't talking to petitioners, there's still things going on. Like the below.


And now I have a family shield to put up on the wall

[Isgrimnur]

Well, you got me to install it from GamePass.

[Isgrimnur]

[jztemple2]

First time I ever remember maxing out my Lifestyle perks chart, but then when your character is still active at 89 91, you might expect these things


UPDATE: And by the way, the queen is pregnant

[jztemple2]

Sadly, the king won't see his new child because at the grand age of 92 he passed, leaving the kingdom to his son.


King Ragnarr starts off with things in decent shape, but the army is smaller and he doesn't inherit any claims that his dad had. Again, had I thought about that, playing almost 100 gold for a claim on a county when your character is approaching ninety probably isn't a good bet.

[Baroquen]

Well, my time with Rurik tonight was rather a mess. He did get rid of the Great Pox: his physician healed him right before he died in some random battle. The king did manage to pass it on to the queen and his soulmate and his lover first though. Lots of stress, trips to the brothel, and eventually a separation from his soulmate ensued.

Regarding the military, I continued to pick on weaker opponents that surround my territory. I had some attacks by random raiders, but they just seem like an annoyance. The big snafu tonight started as I finished taking over some random county to my east. Right as I was nearing completion, Ulljoi and his friend from the north declared war on me. That was a first - I'd been used to being the aggressor. That wouldn't have been a problem except right after enforced my demands regarding my conquest - before I could turn my attention fully to the Ulljoi war - a peasant uprising faction delivered their ultimatum. None of the options presented were acceptable (losing 1 or 2 levels of fame? Not happening!) except for fighting them off too. During the fighting I split my 4000+ troop army into two separate forces, as each was still strong enough to fight off the wandering armies. However, one of my two armies got caught in a battle of allied forces from the north and were actually defeated. I was about ready to call it a "game", and start over somewhere else. But my second army was able to defeat the allied remnants, and then, my 1800+ troop defeated corps was able to re-enter the fray and turn the tide. I think I ended up calling for peace with both groups (my Peacemaker trait helped). So now things are stable again, as I figure out what I want to do.

So I'm having a problem with having too many duchies. I'm not exceeding my general holdings limit, but the duchy warning keeps popping up. Any advice on how to handle creating vassals or how to effectively spin off new holdings to stay under the limit?

[jztemple2]

So I'm having a problem with having too many duchies. I'm not exceeding my general holdings limit, but the duchy warning keeps popping up. Any advice on how to handle creating vassals or how to effectively spin off new holdings to stay under the limit?

If you have too many duchies, you'll have to Grant Title from you to someone in your court. I haven't done this too much, but looking at it in the game, that person must already have one County or Barony to receive the Duchy title. So either give it to a vassal that already has one of those or be prepared to give away a holding as well as the Duchy title. Best advice I can think of is to give it to a vassal who isn't very powerful, so as to not create a threat to your rule. Also giving a title will give a real boost to that person's opinion of you, so if there is someone who's opinion is really important, like one of your councilors, that would be a good person to receive the Duchy title.

If you do have to give up a Duchy title, probably the best person to give it to would be your heir. They would inherit it anyway at some point. But you might have other reasons not to want to give it to them, so the above advice might be useful. Just try to give away the Duchy title that is the least value to you.

[baelthazar]

One small thing I have learned, make sure you have a good treasury when you hold court. So many decisions require money!

[jztemple2]

One small thing I have learned, make sure you have a good treasury when you hold court. So many decisions require money!

So true! I've come to rely on the pope sending me cash just to keep me from going under.

I got a casus belli against a county in Anjou in NW France and started a war, calling in two allies to give me lots of advantage. But I moved too soon against the French and took a loss at a battle because my allies were still on the way to me. Another lesson learned, don't be too aggressive to fight, an even match-up is really poor odds.

[jztemple2]

I'm still fighting this war for Anjou which has being going on for two years, but I do get a chance for a bit of R&R since I've had yet another child born to me... that's nine now


Thankfully I'm about to get the Duchy of Anjou, got to keep the succession kids happy, don't know about those who aren't going to get squat

[jztemple2]

Speaking, as we were, about getting rid of an extra duchy title... I just picked up my third Duchy and have to get rid of one of them. I tried to give it to my Player Heir, but as you can see, he can't be granted a title that he wouldn't be getting as part of the Partition succession.


Well, darn. OK, so I have to look at the succession plan (image below) and I see that the next three princes in line after my Player Heir are each getting one duchy. So I get one of them will be getting an early graduation present!


Or will he? Turns out I can grant a duchy title to just a plain old knight if I want. I guess the restriction about not granting a title to someone who wasn't going to get it in the succession only applies to those in my succession plan. So now I have something to think about, maybe not giving a duchy to one of my young kids and instead giving it to an old retainer. Hmm

[jztemple2]

To continue on this theme, here's a look at the three duchies I hold and the number of counties in each: Brittany(6), Anjou(4) and Cornwall(2). I have to give up one holding and one duchy. Well, Cornwall is the smallest and I have one holding in the Duchy of Cornwall, so if I give away the titles to them both I retain control on a much larger set of duchies.


By the way, here are my current lands in the Kingdom of Brittany. I'm also now the head of French culture, since I hold the most counties in France. Not bad for the son of a Viking raider!

[El Guapo]

When can you change the succession policy? Partition's a bitch.

[Baroquen]

When can you change the succession policy? Partition's a bitch.

You need to have a certain level of crown authority to change from partition to a single-heir scenario. Then, to change the laws, you'll need to spend prestige. All of this can be found under the green "Realm" button at the top of the right-side menu (which I bet you already knew).

If you want more details this article from PCGamesN is a pretty good primer. Details about changing the succession laws are at the bottom.

[jztemple2]

Thankfully since I'm the head of the French culture I can hurry up the increase in crown authority. Still going to be nip and tuck as to whether I can get it fixed before my current ruler dies and his six seven boys fight over the spoils.

I'm really liking the additions from the Royal Court DLC. The artifact stuff is fun, I almost fought a war to force a nearby ruler to return an artifact stolen from my father. Happily the old boy croaked and his adolescent son was more in the mood to return it.

Speaking of wars, just because I had three good allies I figured I could start a war with a strong neighbor and beat him eventually. Well, calling up my three allies depleted my prestige and several years of fighting depleted my bank account. Thankfully my opponent proposed a white peace and I was able to recall my troops and start making money again.

And speaking of money, I wonder if there is a good Bank mod out there? I haven't looked for one, but I hate seeing my gold in my account (when I have it) not getting any interest...

[jztemple2]

Also, Knight Manager is now compatible with the new 1.5 release, so here's my updated list of mods I'm using

Updated to 1.5

• Extended Outliner
• Nameplates
• Biography
• Knight Manager

Not yet updated:

• Fullscreen Barbershop
• Ultimate Tooltip - Framework
• Configurable News Feed

[Baroquen]

Well, shortly after starting up the campaign this evening, good ole, rakish Rurik kicked the bucket.



His son Helgi took over, and looks like he'll be an adequate ruler. However, all the vassals hate him. I assuaged some by making them council members, and I gifted some cash to one of them (which stressed Helgi out since he's greedy). I inadvertently depleted my prestige and was at around -85 when I glanced up. Oops! So I couldn't grab any land. While waiting for the prestige to replenish, the peasants rose up in rebellion, along with 3 of my vassals.

I managed to put them down pretty easily, but not before Helgi's son Rurik Jr. died in the only battle of note. I did make a pretty penny ransoming my vassals' freedom. But I'm taking a break now. When I continue later, I hope to settle down and stabilize the region at least for a little while.

[baelthazar]

When can you change the succession policy? Partition's a bitch.

You need to have a certain level of crown authority to change from partition to a single-heir scenario. Then, to change the laws, you'll need to spend prestige. All of this can be found under the green "Realm" button at the top of the right-side menu (which I bet you already knew).

If you want more details this article from PCGamesN is a pretty good primer. Details about changing the succession laws are at the bottom.

You also have to have the proper realm developments to change to the better succession laws like Primogeniture (oldest gets most/all the titles). You can't get high partition (where you get single inheritance options) until you are in the High Middle Ages (1100s or so).