A Drink from Mímisbrunnr - October 879 (a summary of advice from Chapter 35)
While Rurik pushes on with the war on Merya, his council members back in
Nygarðr seek answers to the questions he has sent back by courier. Their answers are sent by return messenger.
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General Comments
Great episode, and Merya seems to be going downhill quickly. We are officially a regional power
Thank you. Yes, I think as a proper Kingdom (if still young), we have indeed arrived. Back at the start of the AAR, this was one of my stated game objectives, so for me (with all the learning along the way) this has already been a success!
Re spouse seeking, filters, etc:
I'm not sure but for marriage I think join court filter is not necessary. It is weird there is nobody, there should be tons of available people?
I’ll keep probing it. There are a few who may come if pushed (even if they’re not keen to come), including wanting money. But then I may as well pay a couple of gold and get a young debutant … perhaps as the relam expands and more Norse Germanic children of current spouses come to hand. Remember, the vast majority of the provinces are still Russian, Suomenska and Slavic or Finnish, and I was screening out non-Germanic Norse and children. So it may be it will take a while for more local candidates to show through.
The option for changing the adjective for a realm is underneath the realm name change option. For ease of access and to show how historical hindsight faceted Albion history, most of my duchies, kigndoms and empires have the adjective 'British' on them, and all their wars are thus British ones against whoever. Camelot however is Arthurian, and so on. Have a look and see what you would like it changed to, or you might decide that having the wars refer to the people rather than the specific realm at the time might actually be better than changing it. Especially if you do end up becomig Russia.
Ah, useful to know. I’ll leave it for now but may look at amending later. I’m planning to stay Norse Germanic, but who knows, the tide may turn and we may become Russified. At the moment it’s a small Norse ruling family at the top and mainly Slav/Russian Chiefs and peasants below.
And so Rurik’s much vaunted ambitions writ large and starts to slowly come to pass. A kingly kingdom must perforce require kingly ways. Time will tell whether our emasculated ruler has the cojones to truly rule in a regal way...
Well, at least he adopted a more kingly hairdo! Not sure how regal a fierce but emasculated old warrior such as Rurik will be – especially if he starts getting ‘lunatic’ events. We will see what cards he is dealt!
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Ch35 Q1: Great Hunt. Back when I started, there was a Great Hunt decision available (seasonal, but greyed out when not in season). It disappeared a while back from the options. I’m assuming it must have been associated with the Hunting focus and disappeared (without me noticing at first) when Rurik took up Scholarship/Learning. Is that right?
I’m also assuming ‘Hold a Great Blot’ should appear again nine years after the last one (would have to check to see when it was). So, there don’t seem to be any other hold a party/festival etc minor decisions that come up now (and yes, I checked up and down the slider to make sure). Does that seem right for a tribal ruler? I’m not missing or doing something that prevents them appearing (other than not engaging in the hunt)?
With the Way of Life DLC you indeed need to have the hunter focus to use it
Q1 - Great Hunt linked to focus and Blot on cooldown as you surmise
As other have noted, you are correct here.
Thanks all for confirming. He might even switch back to hunting later to be able to hold one – and for the health bonus as even his strong bones start to age …
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Ch35 Q2: Nicknames. Tempting as it was to grab the prestige and obtain a nickname, both in-game and in-character, I decided against Rurik betraying his religious convictions and antagonising the very priests and zealous Germanic followers he is seeking so earnestly to promote. People will volunteer their views on the pros and cons of going public – I hope they do, anyway – but I do have one question. Is the nickname simply a cosmetic reflection of an event or perception of a character? Or does it have any known concrete effect or modifier? My assumption is not, but of course I don’t know. In this case, I thought choice 2 at least gets the scholar trait. Options 3 and 4 seemed non-starters to me. Unless, of course, studying in secret starts some other possible track (ie the secret getting discovered or some such), which opting for the +2 bonus does not risk?
To me, I haven't seen any effect of a nickname, it just seems to reflect your traits, which do affect you but the nickname itself does not seem too though I may be wrong
Q2 - Nicknames are cosmetic. They are handed out depending on actions/traits/circumstances etc., but once given are just "nice"
Just cosmetic. For gameplay purposes, regarding the character is regarded as insane, I would've gone for the first choice even if it didn't give any prestige or anything (and the maluses are not extremely bad I guess) just to tie his insanity with his deep understanding of the cosmos and make it like "he wasn't insane at all, he was just ahead of his time, and that's how he reformed his religion" but option 2 is good too. 3 and 4 were not for a courageous man like Rurik.
Nicknames are purely cosmetic.
Again, thanks for that: an open and shut case as well. Though a good nickname is a great bonus for storytelling!
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Ch35 Q3: Dispensing with a Jarldom. So, any thoughts from the hive mind are welcomed on:
1) Should Rurik indeed dispense with one Jarldom now, rather than wearing the malus and waiting until the succession?
2) If he were to allocate a Jarldom, should it be Tver?
3) And if so, to whom should he allocate it? Dyre, to cement his inheritance? A current Councillor, to put it in safe adult hands now? Or to either Grimr or a suitable un-landed courtier with the right credentials?
4) Another Duchy could be created for Dyre later, if necessary – or not if contra-indicated, to prevent fragmentation.
1, 3, 4) I dont have much experience with gavelkind so dont really know
2) I usually make my decision for giving away on the manpower and gold of the counties in it, though I am not sure if that's the most effective way
It’s one way, and not at all illogical. My other criteria (many from previous advisors) is keeping a centralised demesne and seeing what I think can be kept together as a bundle after a gavelkind succession. And later, wanting to grab a coastal demsne province or two for shipbuilding.
Q3 - I must confess I don't understand the succession mechanics well enough to understand what the implications are
That makes two of us!
Q3.1: I'd wait, but as I said before my experience is as a nomad only so my way might be the wrong way. But the vassals who will be loyal will be loyal despite this small malus, and the ones who will not be loyal would rebel earlier so pose a chance earlier to be replaced by a loyal one. keeping the titles are win/win/win in my opinion.
Good points re the malus and its relative importance.
Q3.2: It is possible that a weaker Jarldom might come into existence after the war with Merya. There can be a sorry 1 county 1 holding Jarldom or something like that. If you must give something, you should give the crappiest, right? And that way you will be giving a Jarldom out of 4 or 5 or more, and not a Jarldom out of 3 when you have 3 sons. Tver can be a good choice (I believe 2 county 2 holding Jarldom) after you have more than 3 Jarldoms, or there might be a 1 county 1 holding one (Pskov maybe?)
Yes, Tver at the moment is probably the logical choice, but I really don’t know what will emerge out of that Meryan hotch-potch. So maybe I
should wait a bit.
Q3.3: Oooh I didn't understand it completely until now. If giving to sons is also on the table it is a different story. Upon inheritance the Jarldoms will go to the sons anyway, so you can go ahead and allocate in advance while avoiding the malus. Since it will not make sense to give away the good provinces (which the elder sons would take) and it will make only some amount of sense to give lands to a kid, again you can wait for the 4th Jarldom and give it to Helgi, who would have inherited the 4th Jarldom anyway. I know the king is a ring giver but I guess I am a tight fisted stingy penny pincher when it comes to titles and I'd hate to lose them. On the other hand, of course if you create and give to Helgi the 4th Jarldom, you would still be holding 3 and have the same malus as now so you can maybe give Tver to Tyre BUT then he will have a regent and that can cause some problems.
So this is a conundrum. You have 3 sons and only Helgi is not a minor but you cannot give away your most powerful Jarldom now. If you give him a weak Jarldom now to get rid of the too many Jarldoms malus and not have a regent while keeping your capital, then when Rurik passes the new king Helgi will be in a weak position. So it seems it is either the malus, a regent, giving away the capital Jarldom or screwing Helgi's kingdom. I hope there is a better option that I am not seeing now.
A neat summary of the quicksand Rurik finds himself in. Perhaps he will see how he goes absorbing some malus now, hope Merya can be resolved quickly, and then do some divisions after that: it is the last major conquest on his books for the foreseeable future: anything more is likely to be small strategic land grabs (a province at a time), holy site liberation or raids for money.
Q3.4: If Dyre has no duchies to inherit, he will inherit most of the unallocated counties. I think it is better for him to have a duchy instead to give king better control of future duchies to create. As long as gold is not a problem, creating all available duchies and giving them away to the sons who will inherit them can be a good course of action. Of course keeping in mind the regency thing. It can be no problem at all or not
It’s the need to keep Rurik’s demesne together for now (and the need to pass as much of it on to Helgi as possible) and regencies that are holding me back.
This is a circumstance where a non-ironman game would be useful for verifying you get what you intend. I would hand out the inheritance to one of the later sons now. Start with one county, then give him the duchy, then additional counties until he won't inherit more. I think that should be possible, as he shouldn't get new inheritances beyond his fair share. You should be able to keep borders neater than they would be otherwise. But gavelkind has changed multiple times in CK2's life, so I could be wrong.
Hmm, that is one test option I have deliberately not given myself – perhaps, in retrospect, a somewhat bold step for a first game! But I like a challenge, and for the AI to have some help. Makes the game and commentary a bit more uncertain and exciting, anyway!
Q3 - typically, at this point, as a young Kingdom, I would tell you to grant the Jarldom to a Norse Chieftain with the de jure boundaries of Tver, if you own no land there. However, you aren't trying to stabilize the Kingdom - yet. It's only a -10 malus, and the best case scenario for you right now would be to have a bunch of Slavs decide to rebel so that you can revoke and redistribute some of their titles. So for now... hang on to it and do your best to provoke them
Worst case scenario would be for your Norse vassals to rebel, but the Slavs already hate your guts, so they're far more likely to. Check to see if there are any nascent factions plotting your downfall.
Useful perspectives, and I think it builds on previous advice you have given – which has led me to dare the bastards to rebel (well, the worst two, anyway) and other advice above about at least waiting until the conquest of Merya before appraising again. And hoping Rurik doesn’t shuffle off in the interim. And look, even if I end up missing a consolidation option because of an untimely succession, it is all still good learning and story material, so I won’t sweat it too much. Onwards, to battle.
All: that was a really useful discussion for me on a complex topic. I’ll now see what the game throws at me and Rurik (or Helgi!!) will take it from there!
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Scholars and Lifestyle Traits
This ended up being an interesting side-bar sub-thread, so I’ve gone with it as a separate topic.
Scholar (+3 Learning) is a lifestyle trait (indicated by the shield shape of the icon).
Once you have one lifestyle trait, you won't trigger any more lifestyle event chains, which are the main way to get lifestyle traits.
So by taking the Scholar trait you've mostly foreclosed the possibility of getting others.
I tend to think that Scholar is one of the weaker lifestyle traits, so I usually take the +2 Learning option (which is not a lifestyle trait) in order to be able to get a better lifestyle later on.
But Scholar is one of the easiest to get, so taking it does have the advantage of getting a lifestyle trait early.
Not a big deal -- you can experiment with different lifestyle traits in the next generation.
See
https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Traits#Lifestyle
My original answer:
Thanks StevenJ!
That’s a very useful little nugget of info. In this case (apart from not knowing any better!!
) I thought the rest of Rurik’s stats were pretty boss and technological backwardness a bit of a problem in the region, but of course I could be wrong. Also, Rurik is getting on a bit now, so maybe it’s not so much of a problem? But a useful consideration for future characters, especially early in their career, as you say. I’ll take look at the wiki reference, thanks.
Even after browsing the link in the Wiki, I still thought there was ambiguity. While it looks pretty clear that you may not get any more events for that particular lifestyle choice, I didn’t think it was certain that you couldn’t then embark on a different lifestyle choice and embark on a new and different event chain as a result of that. Is there something definitive elsewhere that states as black letter law that you can only have one lifestyle trait?
Scholar and piety focuses are for end of life monarchs who have a decade or less left to live (over the age of sixty say) and are basically building up a treasury and political support for their heir. Making works of art and prestige boosting is the name of the game here, and the only egatvies are some minor health difficulties such as stress. It's not as useful as the seduction or family or stewardship focuses but good for old rulers looking to boost their family up a little bit in piety and prestige before they die.
Well, as many characters seem to start pegging out around their mid-fifties and Rurik is nearly 50, it may not have been the worst choice to make. It also fitted with his in-game desire to lift the realm out of its backwardness.
PS: No doubt I’ll get opportunities to explore different focuses as things roll on, either with Rurik or his successors.
As
@TheButterflyComposer mainly useful for later in life. Also it's useful for truce breaking.
Sounds interesting: how does it aid trucebreaking?
It mitigates the effects. One of the effects of truce braking is loss of prestige so if you have more prestige, then you lose some but since you have more, you end with more. You will still face the other effects but you can absorb the prestige loss
In this game, at the moment Rurik has very high prestige (I think around 1,300 IIRC) so I’ll bear that in mind if I need to go around breaking any!
For games where I expect to be playing enough centuries for investments in tech to pay off, I actually like spending a short stint in the Scholarship way of life for most of my rulers, just for the observatory event chain. And I'll do it even when they're young. But I'll take the +2 Learning over the +3 Learning because the extra point of Learning isn't enough to justify giving up a chance at Game Master, Carouser, Socializer, Gardener, Architect, or Administrator (the Lifestyle traits I think more).
Again, noted. If there is a single lifestyle trait limit, then taking the +2 does indeed make plenty of sense as an option to keep that free for another focus pursuit, especially in a younger learner. And equally, the corollary must be true that (if that limit does apply) I can pursue other focuses and, even if I can’t get the main trait from an event chain, might still be able to get a similar +2 option from them? So they would still be worth pursuing anyway?
I tend to switch to this family&health or whatever bonus when my characters are aging and I want to keep them alive. There was one that gave extra health and nice peaceful events.
Noted. Hunting gives a health bonus too.
Focus trees aren't forever, just a couple of years. Mind you founder characters tend to survive much longer than you might expect (remember Uther was the longest lived monarch of Camelot until Galahad came around and became possibly the longest lived Ironman character ever). This means you might have chance to change it again, but I probably wouldn't at this point. It's a good one to end on. Especially with the new religious dlc promising bonuses to prior rulers having higher piiety bonuses (aka, we can actually get some canonised etc).
Per above: I’m assuming I can still benefit from a new focus, even get another event chain (if Rurik has enough time left for that) – there’s just the carry-over question from above on whether I’m barred from gaining the main lifestyle trait at the end of it.
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All: Once again, my sincere thanks to all contributors – Rurik will find the advice very useful. As do I! On now to the battlefields of Merya and their hopefully rapid suppression (though sieges are involved, of course). And whatever else the game throws at our intrepid dynasty founder.
Odin and Mímir’s head at Mímisbrunnr. In Norse mythology, Mímisbrunnr (Old Norse "Mímir's well") is a well associated with the being Mímir, located beneath the world tree Yggdrasil.
We noted in a past episode that Mímir was killed and beheaded by the Vanir during the Aesir-Vanir War. Upon seeing the severed head, Odin embalmed it with special herbs and chanted magical songs over it to preserve it. He consulted the head in times of need, and it continued to dispense incomparable advice. Odin famously sacrificed an eye to Mímir in exchange for a drink from Mímisbrunnr – from which he was reputed to drink every morning.
While Rurik does not have access to
Mímisbrunnr under the
World Tree, he has the next best thing: access to the
Hivemind via the
Þing and the mysteries of the
World Wide Web!
