Crusader Kings III - The Sequel You Have Been Waiting For

[jztemple2]

Make sure you put barcodes on your ships.

I almost missed that bit of land in Scandinavia. I'm sure someone will be gunning for it soon.

While your Player Character can't hold more than two Duchy titles, you can hold at least three Kingdom titles. Of course that means there will be a faction for each title to try to take it away.

I got the option to found a Holy Order, basically mercenaries I can rent for free, although I don't get a piece if someone else rents them . But it costs Piety, lots of gold and I have to give up a holding. So I'll wait till I have a spare holding.

Wouldn't the loose scandinavian province be perfect for a holy order?

I don't have a holding there, instead the Duchess that owns them is my vassal. I'm reluctant to give up any holding since those are levies and taxes going directly to me.

[jztemple2]

I lied, I did decide to start another war. The Kingdom of Burgundy is there and has only 724 soldiers. I have over ten thousand of my own. So just another little war


War is complete, I now add the title of King of Burgundy to my other three Kingdom titles.

[jztemple2]

And with the capture and incorporation of Burgundy, I am presented with an amazing option... found a new empire


I just can't pass this up. To avoid losing practically all my gold I borrow money from a Holy Order, which I'll pay back... someday . I click the button and I'm now Emperor Ragnarr of Brittany. Sadly at the age of 73 Emperor Ragnarr is unlikely to enjoy the pomp and circumstance for long.


And just to recap, in 867 this was my realm.


And now, in 988, this is my realm. Not bad in 121 years

[El Guapo]

That's awesome that CK3 let's you forge a new empire.

Also, I have to imagine that Emperor Ragnarr III still has it in him to seize the French crown from the remnants of France, right?

[jztemple2]

That's awesome that CK3 let's you forge a new empire.

Also, I have to imagine that Emperor Ragnarr III still has it in him to seize the French crown from the remnants of France, right?

Yup, that's one of the options. I'd like to connect those two chunks of my realm. I don't have a casus belli yet for all of Burgundy that is held by France, but I could get it county by county.

Meanwhile, a look at the succession picture. Since Prince Gauthier is my only son, there is no partition, all titles go to him. And that's a total of 117 counties. He has no sons yet, he's only 13 and his betrothed is 30, so there's that. In succession for the Empire after him there's my daughter then two grandsons. By the way, the emblem for the empire is something I edited, since the original was just a copy of the emblem for the Kingdom of Brittany.

[Baroquen]

Wow - that's awesome jz! Whenever I get tired of my Russian reign, I think I'm going to take another stab at western Europe. Try something new, but familiar. My long term goals for my current kingdom are:

1) To Adopt Feudal Ways (so I can play around with a Royal Court) You need the following:
- Absolute Tribal Authority (That's the level 4 option.) Got it.
- Level of Fame is (2) or above. (Despite my new ruler, I'm level 3). Check.
- Level 10 Development in my De Jure Capital. (I'm at level 6.) Getting close.
- 70% of Military and Civic Tribal Innovations. (I have 6; Need 9 or 10). Will take a while.
- Slovianska Pravda (my religion) is an Organized Faith. Uh-oh.

So I'm not sure how to go about that last one. I think I need to "Reform the Slovianska Pravda Faith". But that takes a LARGE amount of Piety (4150). My long-term previous ruler only got about 1/2 - 2/3 of the way to the necessary piety amount, and my new ruler is back down to 580 and is earning 3 piety/month. I also need to hold 3 of the faith's Holy Sites, and I currently only have one.

Anyone know of any tips/tricks to get to Feudal Government quicker, or how to handle my Faith problem? (No bonus points for "Lack of faith disturbing" jokes... ) EDIT to add: Would converting to an organized Faith clear this hurdle? (but probably create other problems?)

My current playthrough has settled down. I had a good session earlier this evening, that I'll recount in a bit. Screenshots and everything! Fun.

[Baroquen]

Ok.. here's the recap of events thus far in my Eastern European playthrough.

Rakish Russian ruler Rurik - he spread his influence around the NE corner of Europe conquering a fair number of territories, and spread the great pox around his court. He was much beloved, but all reigns come to an end and he passed the dynasty off to his son Helgi.

After a rough transition, putting down a peasant uprising or two before winning over his vassals, Helgi continued to expand the kingdom to upwards of 30 counties before he passed. As the end approached, he reflected on his legacy and noticed that the heir Stanislav, his son, was happily married but had not produced a son of his own - only two granddaughters. While there hadn't been much plotting or scheming in these parts, in this case, a tragic accident befell Stanislav's wife when bandits killed her. Poor High Chieftess Savna...



Stanislav quickly remarried and the future Queen Romanovna provided Helgi with the grandson he'd been hoping for.

With that bit of business out of the way, and knowing the end was probably near, the county of Manturovo and its weak military provided too tempting of a target. So with war declared, Helgi prompted kicked the bucket.



Stanislav takes over with the minor war neatly in hand. Until the peasant uprising commences. Isn't that always the way? We manage to finish off the skirmish, and then turned our attention to internal matters. We maintained a healthy advantage in troops and were able to squash the rebellion with relative ease. The one vassal who took part in the uprising was imprisoned, and stripped of his title. I gave to one of the nearby unhappy vassals to boost their mood. You might call it a bribe, but it worked. Since I had a healthy treasury, I spread the wealth around to some of my vassals buying their happiness too. I offered up one of my daughters as a ward, which gave me another opinion bump with a faction-curious vassal. I created a new duchy and granted it to my good friend Afanasyi, just to have another ally in the realm. Add in a successful feast, and I think I've calmed down the initial vassal-hate. I'm going to give it a few years just to make sure, and then we'll work on adding more territories to what will eventually be the Russian empire.

Also - Stanislav is the first of my rulers who aren't following a martial lifestyle, instead opting for a Stewardship lifestyle, and hopefully building up infrastructure. We'll see how that goes. Might have to hire an antiquarian as artifacts are starting to come into play. Might be time for a royal hunt too before the next uprising. You never know.

[jztemple2]

Also - Stanislav is the first of my rulers who aren't following a martial lifestyle, instead opting for a Stewardship lifestyle, and hopefully building up infrastructure. We'll see how that goes. Might have to hire an antiquarian as artifacts are starting to come into play. Might be time for a royal hunt too before the next uprising. You never know.

The Stewardship Lifestyle has been very useful for me with Ragnarr III, even though taking the Martial Lifestyle would have given me a 10% boost. It's not just added money in taxes, but you can get cash from characters upon whom you have hooks. You can also (with it "It's MY Domain" perk) actually get a lump of cash from the peasants.

I haven't found my antiquarian to be all that useful, but then my home county hasn't been besieged. And also I have had my antiquarian created artifacts for me, I'm actually gaining more them from winning wars. Some of them are crap of course . A Royal Hunt comes in useful, my King Rangarr III gains stress just from opening his eyes in the morning, it's a continuing struggle to keep him from going full bonkers.

Meanwhile, I figured out that I don't have to have the same boring "Brittany" name for my Empire as I have for my Kingdom. So now I am Emperor of Templestan!


UPDATE: Templestan on the map as it is now:

[El Guapo]

So it's now *much* easier to become emperor of Britannia, right? Looks like one just needs to piece together parts of Ireland and Scotland.

[jztemple2]

Emperor Ragnarr III died and his son Gauthier took the throne. Eight factions were active, I was still in the middle of a war and I lost a couple of allies. I tried to recover but then the Vikings attacked, a war for the control of the Kingdom of Burgundy erupted and the peasants in England revolted. I managed to get things finally under control, but only have I lost about seven thousand troops in the wars. So while Burgundy is still part of Templestan, it has it's own king and I'm going to get a big hit on taxes.

[jztemple2]

And another faction issued an ultimatum. Six vassals want their independence and their combined total of troops is much more than I have now. I just can't keep fighting all these wars. So I let them have their independence. It's not as bad as I thought it might be. I lose my realm in Ireland and Scandinavia, but those were going to be hard to defend. And I've lost Augsburg and a few counties in Scotland, but again not too bad. Now, if they would just leave me alone for awhile

[jztemple2]

And one final insult, eight vassals join up and demand I roll back Crown Authority to Autonomous Vassals . Their combined forces are greater than mine and I just don't want to fight another war right now. So for the second time in the game I go back to Crown Authority of One.

[jztemple2]

So in the end I'm down only four counties, I still have 113 under my control. There are now only two factions annoying me and neither have enough oomph to give me a concern. My army is only half what it was before, but at over 7600 it is still big enough to deal with any of my vassals. I have learned my lesson though, no more far away wars in support of allies. And that means I should eventually weed out all my far away allies too.

Here's a little trick I learned from that Beginner's Tips article posted above. Right now I have the highest ranked court in the world, but I need cash, so I set all the amenities down to minimum value so there's no cost to me. My Court Grandeur will eventually decay, but right now it will take eighteen years to reach that baseline level, so I'll have plenty of time to put money back into amenities.


And here's another interest bit of info, a look at the monthly change in Prestige. While it is a very long list, including all those artifacts I own, they pale into insignificance when you realize that getting a title or winning a war can net you hundreds of Prestige points.

[jztemple2]

I just lost a very nasty war. I thought having over ten thousand troops would be pretty impressive, till I got run over by a killer stack of sixteen thousand . Yet, oddly, I have more land under the banner of Templestan and a realm size of 131 counties. I think what happened, since it was late at night and I wasn't writing things down, is that a Danish warlord took over several of my duchies and is now my vassal.


Here's that vassal. Her army is as big as mine

[El Guapo]

Well, good thing that she's kind.

[jztemple2]

Well, good thing that she's kind.

I've been romancing her . The helmet does get in the way

[jztemple2]

After stopping for awhile, I've picked the game back up. And big things are happening! I was given an option to form a Hybrid Culture:


While I'm not sure whether I'm going to regret it, that's what saved games are for . As I went through the steps I found myself considering what this new hybrid culture would be called... hmm


And after looking at the various options, I made my choices. I stayed with my current language but accepted the West German culture. I forgot to check out the aesthetics tab, but that's been of minor importance to me anyway.


And here we are! No doubt there will be some choices I'll regret, but it's time to rule.

[jztemple2]

A couple of things... one, even though I have an army of eleven thousand, I've learned to not go to war very often. Gaining a county or even a duchy doesn't make up for the years of fighting, especially when three or four years of fighting can empty my treasury, even though it is over a thousand gold right now.

Second, the Pope is a pushover! Every few years he lets me have several hundred gold. Seriously, just lots of the stuff.

[jztemple2]

Here's a more unusual view, the map of Houses. Note how with the voluntary vassalization of the Kingdom of Aquitaine, our dynasty now holds a goodly part of the continent. This would be much better if my Player Heir hadn't just been excommunicated for trying to kill his brother

[jztemple2]

So I go off on a hunt to relieve stress and this happens... my own son tries to kill me!


I use my Prowess to escape him, but I'm not going to let him be my heir anymore. So I disinherit him. He doesn't like that . And then I try to strip away his titles and he revolts, but it doesn't work out well for him:


Finally he is defeated:


So now that I have him in prison I can strip away his titles and give them to his brother, who is now my Player Heir. The lesson is, if you are going to attempt Regicide, you better succeed first time, because their won't be a second.

[jztemple2]

With the elder son under house arrest and stripped of titles, things are quite again in Templestan


My army is the 800 pound gorilla in the forest


And in eight years it's going to get larger


Hopefully people will stop trying to declare war on me

[jztemple2]

...But then, occasionally, I do declare war on them . In this case, the Kingdom of Greater Moravia, whose ruler has run the place into the ground. I send only my men at arms there and only have to capture the capital to win the war, which is good because 9000 Norsemen showed up to try to take one of my northern duchies. I mobilized my twelve thousand levies and handily drove them back into the sea. So the Empire of Templestan is now that much bigger.


I am really, really enjoying the Royal Court DLC. The gameplay experience is very much enhanced. When I took the Kingdom of Greater Moravia I inherited seven new artifacts. I have many more now than I could wear or display, but since they provided a great variety of modifiers it is a matter of figuring out which ones are the best suited for the present situation. And one can always give them as gifts... well, almost all of them:


By the way, are folks still reading this thread? I'm really enjoying posting to it

[Isgrimnur]

[Zarathud]

Damn you, I started again as Prussia and have almost conquered all Lithuania.

Poland and Belarus are getting annoying throwing their weight around. If I overextend, they’ll come smash me. The problem of starting a new dynasty is the delay while your daughters are children.

[Baroquen]

I'm still enjoying your tales of conquest! Post away!

I haven't played much recently, but IIRC, things were pretty stable with my dynasty. Vassals generally happy and chipping away at the territories around me. A couple other rulers have become pretty powerful around me, but I'm hoping they'll destabilize once their rulers kick the bucket. If the odds are good, I might try and hurry that result along....

[jztemple2]

Got the Household Soldiers innovation, added a new regiment and am expanding the old ones. Too bad the Pope just asked for either money or commitment to a new crusade. I chose the former, since it's less money than he's been giving me periodically.

[jztemple2]

That's right, my court is now ranked number one in the world


And I've just sealed the deal to create the Empire of Francia, which means I'm a dual emperor . And check out the size of the army in top right. Mind you, raising all my troops would bankrupt me in a few years, but let's try to avoid that

[jztemple2]

After a holy war against the Kingdom of Hungary, Templestan has expanded once again. On the lower left you can see Emperor Gauthier's titles, including Emperor of Templestan and Francia, plus seven kingdoms, two petty kingdoms/duchies (one offscreen), and eleven holdings (all offscreen).


However, things aren't all well with Emperor Gauthier. A local mystic spotted something evil in the intestines of a hen (what the hell?) and now I have Had Bad Omen for ten years. It is a moderate health penalty and at sixty-nine I might not outlive it...

[jztemple2]

With the latest creating of duchies and moving of vassals, Emperor Gauthier has done all he can to prepare for his succession, including increasing Crown Authority to High. But a second marriage has produced a second heir. That second heir will inherit the Empire of Francia, the Kingdom of France plus a duchy and a holding. What's more critical is that the Empire of Francia does NOT fall under the Empire of Templestan, so having two heirs will fracture my carefully constructed empire...


...unless of course Emperor Gauthier disinherit the new son...


...but he'll still inherit a duchy and three holdings through his mother, the second wife of the Emperor.

[jztemple2]

Holding enough vassals, I'm able to create the Kingdom of East Francia. I now hold eight kingdoms.


East Francia becomes Germany and the Templestan Empire expands again. However, all this title creation has depleted my gold once again. I dare not start a war with Emperor Gauthier likely to die any day.

[jztemple2]

Oh dear, the Emperor has been assassinated!


A fifty-eight year reign. Emperor Gauthier had fought in 15 defensive and 15 offensive wars. His fame was as A Living Legend. And the church regarded him as a Paragon of Virtue.


The new Emperor, Godimir, hold 28 titles but is seven holdings over his domain limit and is two duchies over his limit, so there are going to be some folks getting new titles today! He still has a large army and over two thousand gold, but things are going to get a bit spartan at the court.

[jztemple2]

The new Emperor holds 19 titles, but if he should suddenly die the Player Heir would only inherit six of them, the rest going to his three brothers. Looks like someone is going to get disinherited!

[jztemple2]

One thing that seems to be happening more often than I remember before is vassals using a hook of some sort to get a position on my council from which they cannot be fired. I'm assuming it is some kind of hook, but I'm not notified of actually how they got there. Weird.

[El Guapo]

How close are you to being able to alter your succession rules?

Also - is it too easy to disinherit people in CK3? Just wondering since it doesn't seem like it happened too often historically.

[jztemple2]

How close are you to being able to alter your succession rules?

Still a ways away. It's one of those cultural Innovations you can focus on, which brings down the wait from hundreds of years to dozens of years. However, I've been focusing on military items like buildings and haven't really wanted to spend time on that. Right now the wait on Hereditary Rule is 197 years, but if I focus on it the wait is only 28 years. That's not soon enough to help my current ruler.

Also - is it too easy to disinherit people in CK3? Just wondering since it doesn't seem like it happened too often historically.

I'm wondering about that. I never used it very much before, but the penalties now are in Renown and Prestige, plus a loss of opinion from the disinherited character. It doesn't garner negative opinions from other characters. Still, it might be a game balance issue. The old Confederate Partition succession rule you were stuck with often resulted in a player losing a huge amount of progress. Now you can avoid a lot of that but you pay other penalties.


If you look at that image above you'll notice that -20 opinion loss for Court Grandeur: Below expected level. I've cut off all court amenities because I've needed the money for the army, so I'm two levels below my expected level of ten, the expected level is so high because I'm a huge empire and folks expect a fancy court! I've been dealing with several faction uprisings and finally had to just give up my Kingdom of Hungary to avoid fighting three major wars at once. And I'm thinking that -20 is a contributor to so many vassals wanted to join factions against me.

By the way, I could never consider playing a CK3 playthrough again without the Royal Court DLC. As a DLC it is so much better than the old CK2 ones, it is very well thought out and is now such an integral part of my gameplay.

[baelthazar]

One thing that seems to be happening more often than I remember before is vassals using a hook of some sort to get a position on my council from which they cannot be fired. I'm assuming it is some kind of hook, but I'm not notified of actually how they got there. Weird.

This seems to be a demand you can make as part of the court now. I used it multiple times to get Margaret of Tuscany to be part of the HREs court (before I successfully backed an Independence War and became my own kingdom). But you can also use a weak hook to do so (that has been in for some time, I think).

[jztemple2]

After several factional wars Templestan continues to be the mightiest empire on the map, or something like that. It has 328 counties and counting.


Yup, that looks pretty big:


Emperor Godimir had had the ups and downs in his career. Check out his biography below. Since becoming emperor he has won five wars but lost one. And see the list of prisoners, twenty-six right now.


Now I have to figure out what to do with all those prisoners. I've had mixed results with previous monarchs and the disposition of captured leaders of rebellions against me. Simply revoking all titles of all prisoners probably isn't going to keep rebellion from happening again. I'll had to be judicious.

[jztemple2]

Now I have to figure out what to do with all those prisoners. I've had mixed results with previous monarchs and the disposition of captured leaders of rebellions against me. Simply revoking all titles of all prisoners probably isn't going to keep rebellion from happening again. I'll had to be judicious.

In the end I ransomed all I could get money from and either got hooks on the others or if they had claims, stripped them of their claims. Money is going to be tight till I can restore the grandeur of my court.

[jztemple2]

So here's the situation as Emperor Godimir reaches the age to qualify for Templestanian Medicare .


I've cut back on the court amenities just a bit so that the final level will be at exactly ten, which is the expected level. It will take seven years to return to this level, but in a couple of years I should be able to lose that big -20 opinion penalty for having such a crappy court.


My antiquarian isn't all that hot, so it's 63 gold to refurbish an artifact that is running out of life. I have 39 court artifacts and three of them were running out of life. That's almost 200 gold I don't really want to spend, so I gave them away to three vassals I needed to make feel better about me. You can only use one artifact to change opinion of one person and it only changes it about +5, but it's better than paying to fix them or letting them dissolve into dust.


The succession situation continues muddled. As seen below, my Player Heir (on the left) gets six titles to add to the six he already has. Those include the big one of Empire of Templestan, but not the Empire of Francia. That goes to the next older brother who also gets the Kingdom of France plus a duchy. However, this second son doesn't have any titles at all now, so he will end up with no holdings at all, just vassals. Number three son (as Charlie Chan would say) gets two Kingdom titles to add to his six existing titles which now have nothing biggie than a single duchy. And the junior son, well, he makes out, he right now holds three duchies and a county and will add, through the inheritance, two kingdoms, a duchy and four holdings. So it's a pretty confusing situation.


So I'm undecided and need some input from folks reading this. I've already had a monarch with a 58 year reign that was the holder of a huge empire, and my current ruler has expanded the empire even more, but had fought a lot more to keep it large. But I'm feeling a bit burned out on the trappings of a huge empire and court. So, Gentle Readers, do I keep my current plan of disinheriting three of the sons so as to pass the most titles to the remaining one, who will also get the treasury and the army? Or do I let things go and let all four sons inherit and sit back and watch the fireworks?

[jztemple2]

Uh-oh, it's almost time...