First game as Apulia

[El Jojo]

I bought CK complete yesterday and I've been trying to learn, I've read the nice tutorial sticked in the forum but I still have some questions, and I'd be thankful if anyone had the time to answer them... (It seems there's no wiki anymore)

Is there a way to end revolts in province ? If I send some troops there will it help ? I'm talking about the "revolt" modifier which gives -50 gold, not about open armed rebellion.

Is it wise to first develop your provinces a bit before going to war, considering how war is expensive ?

How do you deal with a young crappy king (skills 6/6/5/5... only able to rule over a demesne of 2, and he's 17), you wait for an heir and then try to get him gloriously killed in battle ? Does his wife's skills enhance his own set of skills ?

How do you deal with rolling waves of attacks ? Playing as Apulia, sheikdom of Palermo attacked me, then Cyrenaique, then Siracuse and Tripolitania. Basically, every time I try to peace with, there's a new war opening somewhere. My budget is in huge deficit because I have to maintain an army for years...

Armies do not get reinforcements ? I mean an army of 1000 which is now 350 because of battles and attrition, will never reinforce to 1000 even if I let it in friendly territory with 0 attrition ?

 

[James Beil]

1. Revolts usually end by event, but the most common one will be 'Deal with Popular Revolt'. Should be an easy choice from there.
2. Developing provinces is always a good idea, but as Apulia in 1066 it's better to annihilate Capua, Salerno and the rest of the non-German italian lands and form Naples than do anything else.
3. Appointing courtiers (Crest -> Court Screen -> Select a courtier, then click on the drop-down menu to find them a place as an advisor) should help. As Apulia, you really want Bohemond to inherit, so I make Bohemond the Marshal, make him rack up the prestige, and then assassinate whoever's infront of him. If he loses the Bastard attribute, he's one of the best starting heirs in the game.
4. That's a problem. Try lowering some difficulties for now, and remember to mobilize your entire army to attack the moslems. Don't just win a few provinces-if you can, annihilate their countries.
5. Reinforcements do not occur in CK while armies are mobilized. In order to reinforce a regiment, you need to disband them so that they go back to their home provin ce and wait for the army to automatically reinforce. Always keep some provinces unmobilized in case of emergency.

 

[unmerged(233955)]

Development: Of course it is; unless you're fighting a war that you know you are going to win or aren't going to be harmed from, staying away from it is usually a good idea. Unless you're RPing an overzealous crusader, or something of the sort,.

Crappy King: Live with it. Courtiers help relieve it some what, but not much. And your wife doesn't do anything but needs to be assigned to a court position to help.

Rolling: Boohoo, I'm surprised you lasted so long. Get allies but not much you can do, ;P.

Reinforcements: In the CK world, standing armies were only the elite guards, your "armies" are in fact levied peasants stripped from their lands. To cut the explanation, you need to disband your armies if you wish to reinforce them.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Above explanation is also much better, admittedly.

 

[El Jojo]

Ok thanks for the quick answers.
So, if I have to live with Roger Borsa and his poor stats, I guess I will need to grant titles and have many vassals ? Increasing your own demesne is not a good way to grow, since you rely on a king good intrigue skills to hold it together.
By the way, "Royal Post" is supposed to decrease demesne requirements by -20, does it mean that if I build royal posts everywhere, it will help my poor king to manage its lands ?
Right now I can't attack Salerno because I have no claims, so I guess I will try to cripple the muslims first

Well, a few hours later, I've yet to understand what does what... I'm starting to think you have to get used to not controlling that much, since it's very unclear, as a beginner, what triggers what. My king got the "realm duress" modifier and all my vassals are turning on me, even childhood friend... All my vassals have a -5% loyalty modifier which means that even if I win the war and replace them, the new vassal turn rebel also...
In the first place, how do you gain realm duress ? How do you avoid it ? Or is it something like the "comet sighted" event in EU, bad luck at some point and just deal with it... but how long will it last ?

And then, Toscana and Aragon declare war ? Aren't they supposed to have a claim or is it because reconquering my vassals gave me lots of reputation ("slightly tarnished" only still...)

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

By the way, "Royal Post" is supposed to decrease demesne requirements by -20, does it mean that if I build royal posts everywhere, it will help my poor king to manage its lands ?

RP decrease the 'over demesne-penalty' in the specific province with 20%.

The more you are over your demesne-limit, the lower the income from your provinces. f.e. if you have an efficiency of 70% you will only get 70% of the province-income. Building a RP will give you 90% (70+20) of that specific province-income.

Well, a few hours later, I've yet to understand what does what... I'm starting to think you have to get used to not controlling that much, since it's very unclear, as a beginner, what triggers what. My king got the "realm duress" modifier and all my vassals are turning on me, even childhood friend... All my vassals have a -5% loyalty modifier which means that even if I win the war and replace them, the new vassal turn rebel also...
In the first place, how do you gain realm duress ? How do you avoid it ? Or is it something like the "comet sighted" event in EU, bad luck at some point and just deal with it... but how long will it last ?

Realm-duress and revolts are all caused by your bad ruler, you are probably over your demesne-limit which also leads to 'realm duress'.

Realm-duress ends by events (or when your current ruler dies). To end it, make sure that all your vassals are at least 60% loyal. If you ruler has a bad diplomacy-rating, then try to find a good chancellor. Also keep a honourable reputation, so when a vassal rebels, don't take away his title (that will ruin your reputation) but instead vassalize him again and at the same time give up your claims on his title (he will become your vassal again, so you don't need a claim). This will increase your prestige and high prestige is good for ending realm-duress.

Another way to increase your vassals-loyalty is to set scrutage to zero, this will give a +1% loyaltybonus per month.

Tuscany and Aragon, most likely attack you because you are weak. The AI is good in spotting that.

 

[Winchester]

Good luck with Apulia. I too tried playing after reading Innocent Beard's excellent article having played my first games as Northumberland.

Northumberland was difficult as I would expect, being a Saxon vassal of Norman England, but my difficulties were largely with England, and I could understand why they arose and what was going on.

Playing Apulia it seemed as if everyone was out to get me. Continual attacks by Tuscany (what had I done to upset them?), getting Excommunicated, getting Excommunicated again .... and again. When these attacks started my realm was pretty healthy, but it was as Apulia that I discovered the imbalance of the game feature (I think it is by design rather than a bug) that AI treasury cannot drop below zero. After a war I would be in debt; my enemy would not, and when a year later they attacked me again I would still be in debt. They ought not be able to have done that.
There are better states to play, in my very limited experience. My current game as Barcelona started far far better.

Anyway, a couple of questions related to the discussions in this thread.

• Does Reputation have any effect other than the loss of loyalty of vassals? Does it, like EU3, cause AI nations to launch random attacks? If so, at what level?
• What effects does Stability have? Is it very bad to stuck at -3?

 

[El Jojo]

Thanks, things are making more sense now. I also figured that you don't need a claim to declare war on fellow christian, you can grab title. I guess that's what Tuscana did.
Well I expected my first game to be difficult, so I'm not surprised. I choosed Apulia before reading the tutorial, I thought I could play the "reconquest" of Sicily and that I would have the support of the pope. Well, the pope doesn't seem to care but I still managed to conquer most of Sicily.

Concerning realm duress, indeed my royal demesne is over the limit but, considering the limit is 2, I was reluctant to give away the land I started with. Guess I'll have to do it. Damn you Roger Borsa, inept ruler!

Concerning the loyalty of vassals, the tiptool over their loyalty gives me the reason it drops. Some I understand like "diplomacy rating of the liege" but there's also "character's trait" which can be pretty big (2 or 3%), I've tried to look at the character's traits and there's no mention of loyalty decrease, is it a hidden effect ? Or the combination of the vassal and liege traits ?

By the way, do you think I should just jump to DVIP or is it worth it to get a grasp of Vanilla first ?
Any good gameplay AARs ? I've seen great narrative AARs, but I'd be happy with one where you can see the clogs and mechanisms along the story...

 

[Winchester]

Concerning the loyalty of vassals, the tiptool over their loyalty gives me the reason it drops. Some I understand like "diplomacy rating of the liege" but there's also "character's trait" which can be pretty big (2 or 3%), I've tried to look at the character's traits and there's no mention of loyalty decrease, is it a hidden effect ? Or the combination of the vassal and liege traits ?

The last, mostly, although some traits in your ruler such as Coward, Wise (!), Kinslayer or Excommunicated will make all your vassals less loyal. Kinslayer, Heretic and Excommunicated are particularly nasty at -2.5% per month. A few traits such as Valorous will improve loyalty of all vassals, but only by 0.5% per month at best.

Most of the loyalty effects are due to the combination of vassal and leige traits. A Just vassal for instance will not like an Arbitary leige (-1% per month), but if the liege is Temperate he will get a loyalty gain of 0.4% per month. None of these appear in tooltips; you can read them in the traits.txt file.

There is precious little you can do about traits. I hope Roger Borsa has a secure (and more worthwhile) heir.

 

[El Jojo]

Keeping on with my exploration of the game. I realize wars against the sicilian sheikdom were easy, compared to war with Tuscana. I've replayed the war a few times.
First thing is deficit, should I always keep a big pile of gold in case of war ? If I mobilize troops to be equal to Tuscana, that puts me at -200 per month, so I should have stockpiled 2000 gold to last a year... Hard to do with a monthly peace income of 20.
When I go into deficit, as you all know, I'm starting to lose buildings and forts, so that Tuscana doesn't have to pillage, I'm pre-doing it!

I've tried a few strategies against Tuscana stack of 15k man. If I try to defend I lose and after that my army is depleted and everyone attacks me (Bologna, Beni Hal etc.). I thought of letting attrition kill a few of them, but this stack is sieging very quickly, so by the time they are down to 12k, they already occupy Foggia, Apulia and Barri with an ongoing siege in Lecce. Maybe I have a soft heart but I find it difficult to rely on a strategy which requires to stand by as all my demesne gets trashed.

Between the debts, the small attrition Tuscana gets and my military defeats, I'm wondering about the possibility to wage war against equal powers.

Should I have altered the balance of power in provinces to get better troops ? Should I go for Grand Mobilization and try to overwhelm their stack, and then quickly disband everything ? Are there specific advices to win battles ?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Should I have altered the balance of power in provinces to get better troops ? Should I go for Grand Mobilization and try to overwhelm their stack, and then quickly disband everything ? Are there specific advices to win battles ?

No, you don't have to change the power-settings, that is to much micro-management. Just accept that you will go into debt. When you are in debt, you will also get the 'estates general' event, which will give you extra gold. And besides losing some improvements, being in debt is not really a big problem.

Also check the provinces that you are fighting in, if they have 'roads' and 'extended roads' then you can set army maintenance to zero, since the bonuses this gives to lower attrition (+10 and +20) is higher then the penalty you get from not paying (-20).

I never use the 'grand mobilization' button, I always mobilize my regiments and those of my vassals manually.

Another thing, you don't pay for the upkeep of the regiments of your vassals, so use them a lot and saves you gold.

For your research, focus on siege-technology. The quicker you can conquer provinces the better.

 

[unmerged(112910)]

I'm very inexperienced at this game, but those hours that I did play I usually took a very defensive approach when someone slightly bigger or same size declares war on me.. also from a financial perspective. If it is your direct neighbour and you see he has no troops, you can of course move. If he is more distant, just wait and see if he actually invades. Sometimes an emissary asks for peace after a couple of months, especially if they are committed elsewhere. If they do invade, you can still mobilise... and at least they've suffered some attrition.

In the unfortunate circumstance that a kingdom attacks me (as a count or duke), I have just tried to 'liberate' one county in the monarch's demesne and then hope he will settle for peace. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just makes him more angry...

As I said, very little experience in the game so I might be totally off.

 

[unmerged(233955)]

Mm, well those are all decent tactics to work with, most people follow similar general guidelines to war when they play; or at least I do.

Regarding kingdoms, it all depends on whether they're mobilizing their vassals or not. If they don't trying to quickly overpower them and get all the royal demesne is usually what I do, if not, they the county trick might work.