Crusader Kings II ~ Quick Answers

[jonjowett]

1. What is the best retinue for Norman culture? Currently have 15K retinue cap. But I read Knight retinue not only so expensive but also occupy so many retinue cap.

When deciding on retinues, you should first decide what you want them to do. There are 4 main options, which lead to very different compositions.
(A) Retinues are for role-play. I'm a Norman, I want my knights and cavalry charges! (IE: 100% Knights.) Who cares if they aren't particularly effective?!
(B) Retinues inflate my troop count, which dissuades factions, so I want the greatest quantity of soldiers possible. (IE: Pure "Light Skirmish".) I don't care if they're terrible in battle!
(C) I want retinues which will perform well in battle, and I don't want to think too hard: 100% "Defence" retinue.
(D) I want to find the absolute best-possible retinues for my situation: read on...

To create the most effective retinues, you need to make a mental list of all of the relevant bonuses:

• From your capital - notably from technology and from the cultural building in your capital. (Your retinue's bonuses are based on your capital.)
• From the retinues themselves.
• From your culture and/or religion, if applicable.

Then, you can use the retinue combat tactics calculator together with the combat tactics list to fine-tune your composition. (Eg: "With {this test composition}, Shieldwall is my main skirmish tactic, and that gives huge bonuses to infantry and huge maluses to cavalry, and my retinue and capital provide even more bonuses, so this is even better than it appears in the calculator!")

Since you're in Norman Sicily, your capital province's culture is probably Italian, meaning your capital's cultural building will give bonuses to pikes. So, if you build the pike building in your capital and keep your capital province's culture Italian, then "100% Defence" retinue is almost certainly the highest-quality retinue you can get.

I did try to find a decent composition including knights (in case you want to follow approach (A)), but there's nothing particularly good. Knights on their own are great in melee but kinda terrible in skirmish, but skirmish always happens first, so they'll be sitting ducks for a minimum of 10 days - skirmish specialists would be very dangerous to you. 1:1 or 2:1 GenericCavalry:Knight is mediocre in skirmish and still quite good in melee; that's probably the best you'll manage if you absolutely must have knights.

2. Have a dynasty member who became King of Croatia (a king and his sister) with Elective Monarchy. What happen if somehow the 'line' go extinct? Would my dynasty member from outside Croatia inherit the Kingdom of Croatia?

Almost certainly not.

Elective Monarchy means the king and all of his dukes vote for the successor.

If a king votes for a landed ruler of his dynasty from outside the kingdom, his AI dukes will never support an external ruler as the new king. (A player king can work around this by using favors, but the AI doesn't know how to do this.) (The only way this can work in your situation is if the AI king of Croatia decides to vote for you - unlikely - and he only has 0 or 1 vassal dukes, ie. his vote is the only one that matters - also unlikely.)

If a king votes for an unlanded dynast from outside his kingdom (eg. your son), his dukes might support it in some cases (eg. if the candidate is amazing and is not heir to any titles). However, in your case, Croatian and Norman are different culture groups, which is an extremely difficult barrier to overcome. (Again, you need him to choose your guy, and you need him to have at most one duke, and both are unlikely.)

In practice, if you want to gain the kingdom of Croatia, it's better to engineer a situation where your heir has a claim on Croatia, die, and then press the claim. Eg: Marry your son to his daughter and press the claim as your grandson.

Or, you can engineer a situation where your heir is the king of Croatia. Eg: The king of Croatia is a valid candidate for your titles (close relative or claimant), switch your titles to elective succession, nominate the king of Croatia, and use favors to force the issue.

3. Have Grand Mayor of Amalfi who became Waldensian. What I need to do with him? Left him alone? He would refuse title revocation, so need to fight him. Don't want to destroy the MR since he currently pay me 100 gold/year compared to another MR which only pay half of that.

I agree that it's a bad idea to revoke his titles - this will destroy the MR (ie. no more palaces and trade posts), and it takes a long time for a new MR to become that profitable.

If he likes you enough, he may accept "Demand Religious Conversion".

• Usually requires approx +30 opinion.
• However, before sending an expensive gift, check the "demand conversion" interaction to see if he is a "true believer" - they will never accept conversion.
• This is the ideal option, because it also converts every unlanded character of his religion in his court. IE: All of his potential heirs.

If he won't accept, you could:

• Ignore him, and hope his heir is more reasonable.
• Murder him, and hope his heir is more reasonable.
• Imprison him (either by fabricating a justification, or tyrannically), and "demand conversion".
  • Most people will convert to get out of prison. But "true believers" usually won't - check first!

 

[Rockphed]

Imprisoning is also a decent way to have an easy time at murder. Even if you don't want to execute him, the oublette will reduce his health massively.

 

[jonjowett]

Imprisoning is also a decent way to have an easy time at murder. Even if you don't want to execute him, the oublette will reduce his health massively.

It seems like the underlying goal is to continue making fat stacks of cash from Amalfi. For this, the Doge needs to have a positive opinion of you (otherwise his taxes will be reduced). The more force you use, even if it's justified, the more the Doge and his family (IE: probable future Doges) will hate you. And, if the force is unjustified (eg. tyranny, murder, execution), then all of the MR families (IE: all possible future Doges) will hate you, as will the rest of your vassals. This is why IMO peaceful religious conversion is best, and ignoring a loyal vassal's heresy is second-best.

On the other hand, if you're old and think you'll die soon... "opinion of predecessor" penalties fade a few years after your successor inherits... just a thought ;-)

Since OP probably has religious revocation, it's worth pointing out that revoking any other Waldensians' titles due to heresy will annoy the Doge, so you probably shouldn't if you want to follow the peaceful-conversion or ignore-heresy approach.

 

[DeTomato]

Since you're in Norman Sicily, your capital province's culture is probably Italian, meaning your capital's cultural building will give bonuses to pikes. So, if you build the pike building in your capital and keep your capital province's culture Italian, then "100% Defence" retinue is almost certainly the highest-quality retinue you can get.

I did try to find a decent composition including knights (in case you want to follow approach (A)), but there's nothing particularly good. Knights on their own are great in melee but kinda terrible in skirmish, but skirmish always happens first, so they'll be sitting ducks for a minimum of 10 days - skirmish specialists would be very dangerous to you. 1:1 or 2:1 GenericCavalry:Knight is mediocre in skirmish and still quite good in melee; that's probably the best you'll manage if you absolutely must have knights.

My Culture actually Norman in Palermo. Every county in Island of Sicily flipped its culture (from Berber or Greek) to Norman.

Capital culture building is Jousting Lists (Knight).

I actually want retinues which will perform well in battle. Or I better scrapped the idea to have a retinue and just hire mercs when I need them? I currently have 20K levy (after buff from Great Wall). In my previous gameplay (years ago), I have retinue and they just sit in the capital doing nothing.

Elective Monarchy means the king and all of his dukes vote for the successor.

If a king votes for a landed ruler of his dynasty from outside the kingdom, his AI dukes will never support an external ruler as the new king. (A player king can work around this by using favors, but the AI doesn't know how to do this.) (The only way this can work in your situation is if the AI king of Croatia decides to vote for you - unlikely - and he only has 0 or 1 vassal dukes, ie. his vote is the only one that matters - also unlikely.)

If a king votes for an unlanded dynast from outside his kingdom (eg. your son), his dukes might support it in some cases (eg. if the candidate is amazing and is not heir to any titles). However, in your case, Croatian and Norman are different culture groups, which is an extremely difficult barrier to overcome. (Again, you need him to choose your guy, and you need him to have at most one duke, and both are unlikely.)

In practice, if you want to gain the kingdom of Croatia, it's better to engineer a situation where your heir has a claim on Croatia, die, and then press the claim. Eg: Marry your son to his daughter and press the claim as your grandson.

Or, you can engineer a situation where your heir is the king of Croatia. Eg: The king of Croatia is a valid candidate for your titles (close relative or claimant), switch your titles to elective succession, nominate the king of Croatia, and use favors to force the issue.

It seems I better prepare to lost Kingdom of Croatia. But, what happen to the King who also own Duchy of Bosnia, it use the same Elective succession? Its a King who currently don't have a children and his sister who also don't have a children. So, if 2 of them die young age, the 'line' gone extinct.

From 4 duchy dejure part of Croatia, I own Hum (inherited by my character (a woman who have a Croatian culture) before I give it to a dinasty member), Slavonia (own by Venice), so Kingdom of Croatia currently only consist of Duchy of Croatia and Duchy of Bosnia.

I agree that it's a bad idea to revoke his titles - this will destroy the MR (ie. no more palaces and trade posts), and it takes a long time for a new MR to become that profitable.

If he likes you enough, he may accept "Demand Religious Conversion".

• Usually requires approx +30 opinion.
• However, before sending an expensive gift, check the "demand conversion" interaction to see if he is a "true believer" - they will never accept conversion.
• This is the ideal option, because it also converts every unlanded character of his religion in his court. IE: All of his potential heirs.

If he won't accept, you could:

• Ignore him, and hope his heir is more reasonable.
• Murder him, and hope his heir is more reasonable.
• Imprison him (either by fabricating a justification, or tyrannically), and "demand conversion".
  • Most people will convert to get out of prison. But "true believers" usually won't - check first!

How to check if he is a "true believer" or not? From "Zealot" trait?

He is currently exceeding his demesne limit (10 city) after gone tiranny and revoke cities from another Patrician. If somehow his family inherit the Grand Mayor title, would his family inherit that 10 city too?

Thank you.

 

[Thrake]

Sharing the liege's dynasty isn't a requirement to be a valid candidate. Distant dynasts aren't valid. If you are next in line though it would be a good time to start a plot though you could run the risk to not be the heir by the time the plot is set in motion.

I think I would try to marry the sister, it's pretty easy to do with dynasts as you can offer a matri marriage to sweeten the deal, the AI likes it even when it makes no major difference. At worst you would have secured a claim for a close dynast.

 

[jonjowett]

My Culture actually Norman in Palermo. Every county in Island of Sicily flipped its culture (from Berber or Greek) to Norman.

Capital culture building is Jousting Lists (Knight).

I actually want retinues which will perform well in battle. Or I better scrapped the idea to have a retinue and just hire mercs when I need them? I currently have 20K levy (after buff from Great Wall). In my previous gameplay (years ago), I have retinue and they just sit in the capital doing nothing.

To summarise my long post above:

• 100% "Defence" will probably perform best in combat.
• If you want knights for RP reasons, 2 "Cavalry" retinue units for every 1 "Knight" unit.

It seems I better prepare to lost Kingdom of Croatia. But, what happen to the King who also own Duchy of Bosnia, it use the same Elective succession? Its a King who currently don't have a children and his sister who also don't have a children. So, if 2 of them die young age, the 'line' gone extinct.

From 4 duchy dejure part of Croatia, I own Hum (inherited by my character (a woman who have a Croatian culture) before I give it to a dinasty member), Slavonia (own by Venice), so Kingdom of Croatia currently only consist of Duchy of Croatia and Duchy of Bosnia.

Giving away DHum may have been a mistake, because whoever holds DHum is an elector in Croatia.

If the king's candidate is also your preference, then you could take DHum back and make him win the election. (4 electors: DHum, DCroatia, KCroatia/DBosnia, DSlavonia. If you and the king vote for the same candidate, they will be elected, because the king is the tie-breaker.)

Otherwise, you need to go through the usual steps to try to obtain the kingdom for yourself. Matri-marrying KCroatia's sister to you or your heir, as suggested by @Thrake is a good idea - it opens a lot of options (mostly: press a claim on the kingdom for one of the sister's children).

EDIT: What happens to DBosnia on succession is highly dependent on who's the next king of Croatia:

• Next king is a member of previous king's dynasty => next king also inherits DBosnia
• Next king is a member of another dynasty, and was landed before inheriting the kingdom => DBosnia follows the default succession (usually primogeniture)
• Next king is a member of another dynasty, and was not landed before inheriting the kingdom => Some or all of the old king's demesne will be given to the next king. This may include DBosnia. The rest will follow the default succession (usually primogeniture).

How to check if he is a "true believer" or not? From "Zealot" trait?

Demand conversion, and check the reasons why he won't accept. If any of those reasons are "True believer: -------", then he's a true believer and will never willingly convert.

Zealots who are not true believers can be converted peacefully - but it's usually a lot harder to do so.

"True believer" is most frequently gained by secret religious society members when the society reveals itself en masse. (There are many other ways to gain it - although each of those is quite rare, and most of them are also not possible for current landed rulers.)

He is currently exceeding his demesne limit (10 city) after gone tiranny and revoke cities from another Patrician. If somehow his family inherit the Grand Mayor title, would his family inherit that 10 city too?

His family will inherit 9 of those 10.

The capital city (Amalfi) will always go to the next Doge (who may also be from the previous Doge's family, but also he may not).

 

[Sanvone]

How about parking your Realm Priest on Amalfi and just waiting till you convert who you want there? It's better way than demanding religious conversion as this poses a threat of starting hidden Waldensian society (if he decides to keep Waldensianism as hidden faith). Easily the best use of Realm Priest and has few times higher chance of happening than converting province. If works on true believers/zealous characters too (used it to convert high attribute Jewish characters to Orthodoxy in my AAR).

 

[jonjowett]

How about parking your Realm Priest on Amalfi and just waiting till you convert who you want there? It's better way than demanding religious conversion as this poses a threat of starting hidden Waldensian society (if he decides to keep Waldensianism as hidden faith). Easily the best use of Realm Priest and has few times higher chance of happening than converting province. If works on true believers/zealous characters too (used it to convert high attribute Jewish characters to Orthodoxy in my AAR).

Technically, yes, this can work - but the amount of time needed is unknown and potentially very very long.

The way it works is your court chaplain has a X% chance per year to convert someone in that province. That's fine if there's only one wrong-religion person in the province. However, if there are many people of the wrong religion in the province, then the chance of converting the one specific person you care about is much much much lower (it's not an x% chance of each individual person being converted, it's an x% chance of one random person being converted). There will probably be a LOT of people jammed into that province (all 5 patrician houses, all having duke-sized courts), ie. there will probably be a LOT of wrong-religion characters in that province, ie. the chance of the Doge being selected by the random event is probably quite small. And, further, landed characters can leave whenever they want (eg. by leading an army), making them completely ineligible for the conversion event.

 

[DeTomato]

I have another questions:
1. I already have Great Walls in my capital (Palermo). If I create another great works like Royal Palace or Magnificent Garden in another county (Siracusa or Trapani) in Island of Sicily, would my character still got buff +5% Fertility from that great works even if its not located in my capital?
2. I currently using Custom Empire with 3 Kingdom tier title (Sicily, Andalusia, Badrajoz) since I running out of vassal limit. If somehow I have a chance to create real empire title (Hispania or Maghreb), and I want to destroy the Custom Empire title, would everyone hate me or just the one that dejure part of the Custom Empire (Sicily, Andalusia, Badrajoz)?
3. In my gameplay, 4th Crusade already over. At that time I couldn't change the crusade target (grey out). So the chance for Crusade for Latin Empire is over in the next crusade?

Thank you.

 

[DeTomato]

How about parking your Realm Priest on Amalfi and just waiting till you convert who you want there? It's better way than demanding religious conversion as this poses a threat of starting hidden Waldensian society (if he decides to keep Waldensianism as hidden faith). Easily the best use of Realm Priest and has few times higher chance of happening than converting province. If works on true believers/zealous characters too (used it to convert high attribute Jewish characters to Orthodoxy in my AAR).

I successfully convert the Grand Mayor and his successor (the next Grand Mayor) after I park my Priest Chaplain in Amalfi. It seems more difficult to convert his kid though.

 

[jonjowett]

1. I already have Great Walls in my capital (Palermo). If I create another great works like Royal Palace or Magnificent Garden in another county (Siracusa or Trapani) in Island of Sicily, would my character still got buff +5% Fertility from that great works even if its not located in my capital?

Yes.

2. I currently using Custom Empire with 3 Kingdom tier title (Sicily, Andalusia, Badrajoz) since I running out of vassal limit. If somehow I have a chance to create real empire title (Hispania or Maghreb), and I want to destroy the Custom Empire title, would everyone hate me or just the one that dejure part of the Custom Empire (Sicily, Andalusia, Badrajoz)?

When you destroy a title, only the de jure vassals of that title hate you. (And, even then, it's only for a little while.)

3. In my gameplay, 4th Crusade already over. At that time I couldn't change the crusade target (grey out). So the chance for Crusade for Latin Empire is over in the next crusade?

There's two different meanings for "4th crusade". One is literally an in-game counter: if there have been 4 crusades so far in the game, the last one was the 4th. The other meaning is the special events themed around the real-world 4th crusade. Those special events can only occur once per game, and they are not guaranteed to occur in any particular numeric crusade (they won't happen in the 1st, but it could be the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, etc).

If you have had 4 crusades so far and none of them had the special "4th crusade" events, then those special events can occur in the future in this game. If you have had those special "4th crusade" events once in the game (whether it was crusade number 4 or not) then you will not see them again in this game.

Note that the special "4th crusade" events have certain requirements, notably: Byz must be non-Catholic Christian, must own Constantinople, must have realm size of at least 50 (more is preferred). If those conditions are not met (eg. Byz is Catholic, or has been destroyed/near-destroyed by the Muslims) then the special events cannot occur in your game.

 

[jamhaw]

Are forum icons still a thing?

I've bought a couple games off GoG recently and I do not see a code for them.

I presume you need an appropriate icon to post a thread in the tech support forum and I need some assistance as for some reason my Lutris is "not responding" whenever I play CKII (but Lutris and the computer seem to be fine with other games - and seems fine with CKII in that the only problem is how I'm constantly having this pop up asking me if I want to shut off Lutris spamming me).

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Are forum icons still a thing?

I've bought a couple games off GoG recently and I do not see a code for them.

I presume you need an appropriate icon to post a thread in the tech support forum

Nope, no new ones get released either and no, they are not needed for anything.

and I need some assistance as for some reason my Lutris is "not responding" whenever I play CKII (but Lutris and the computer seem to be fine with other games - and seems fine with CKII in that the only problem is how I'm constantly having this pop up asking me if I want to shut off Lutris spamming me).

A linux game manager issue ?
Doesn't sound like a game issue. Isnt that more an issue on Lutris and maybe it has a community ?
That said i believe to recall someone in tech suport is a bit Linux savy.
The tech support forum still gets occasionly served, but i'd rather recommend to open a ticket
here : https://support.paradoxplaza.com/hc/en-us , though it's less personal.

 

[DeTomato]

So my character manage to create Immortal Blood of Alexander.

What it means with "Can use Invansion CB once per lifetime"?

If I use Invansion CB, do I need to siege every holding in target kingdom (including subholding like City, Barony and Bishoporic) or I just need to siege top holding?

Thank you

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

So my character manage to create Immortal Blood of Alexander.

What it means with "Can use Invansion CB once per lifetime"?

If I use Invansion CB, do I need to siege every holding in target kingdom (including subholding like City, Barony and Bishoporic) or I just need to siege top holding?

Thank you

I believe to recall it depends on the relative realm size.
Be sure to get warscore as well by winning battles, not only by sieges.
You don't need to siege every holding, you don't realy need to most of the time, but it appears so in small realms
due to the warscore percetages required.
Uusaly you only need to siege everything, if you haven't got enough warscore through battles.

This CB is actually the same as a tribal invasion CB.
So you usurp all sieged holdings and vassalise the rest according to your title tier.
So if you are a king, then you get all dukes and ranks/titles below that, that you have not sieged, as your vassals.

See also

Bloodline - Crusader Kings II Wiki

ck2.paradoxwikis.com

Casus Belli - Crusader Kings II Wiki

ck2.paradoxwikis.com

 

[jonjowett]

So my character manage to create Immortal Blood of Alexander.

What it means with "Can use Invansion CB once per lifetime"?

If I use Invansion CB, do I need to siege every holding in target kingdom (including subholding like City, Barony and Bishoporic) or I just need to siege top holding?

Thank you

If you win a war with this invasion CB, you gain:

• For every county in the target realm where you occupy the county capital: gain every holdingin that county.
  • NB: If there are baronies in the county which are not part of the target realm - eg. independent barons - then you do not gain these.
• For every barony in the target realm which is occupied by you and which is not a county capital: gain that barony.
• Every remaining county & barony in the target kingdom is vassalised by you. Or, if vassalisation is impossible, you take it directly.

This means that, in theory, you can use an invasion CB to take the entirety of a massive empire in only one war - declare for any random kingdom, then occupy the county capital of every county in the empire. However, in practice, I find that factions and neighbours (and the boredom of such a long war, and not wanting to spend 2 hours handing out titles) will probably prevent you from taking more than 3-4 de jure kingdoms.

 

[DeTomato]

My heir currently waging war against someone in Defensive Pact (30% threat level). If somehow he inherit my title while the war still ongoing, would it invite all the other member of the Pact to join the war on enemy side?

Thank you

 

[Rockphed]

My heir currently waging war against someone in Defensive Pact (30% threat level). If somehow he inherit my title while the war still ongoing, would it invite all the other member of the Pact to join the war on enemy side?

Thank you

Short answer: no. Long answer: defensive pacts only trigger at war start. Annoyingly, when you save and reload, A bunch of small members of defensive pacts leave and rejoin A couple days later. The last game I played with them on, I would reload and start a bunch of wars because I was at 100% threat and there were realms I could wage war.on out of the pact.

Also, if you get someone else to declare the war (e.g. A jihad or crusade) you can conquer without fear of the pact.

 

[Prime624]

Trying to make a bloodline. Heading towards Architect or Peace Architect. The wiki says that Architect comes with +5% Burgher Vassal Tax. The Peace Architect instead has +3% City Tax.

I'm a feudal ruler. Am I correct in thinking the Peace Architect bonus wouldn't help me at all since it doesn't affect vassals? And based on that, is the Peace Architect bloodline just worse for non-Republics than the normal Architect?

 

[majdavlk]

Trying to make a bloodline. Heading towards Architect or Peace Architect. The wiki says that Architect comes with +5% Burgher Vassal Tax. The Peace Architect instead has +3% City Tax.

I'm a feudal ruler. Am I correct in thinking the Peace Architect bonus wouldn't help me at all since it doesn't affect vassals? And based on that, is the Peace Architect bloodline just worse for non-Republics than the normal Architect?

burger vassal tax increases vassal tax

city tax should increase income from held cities in your demesne

if y9u hold cities you will benefit from it