How to play the game?

[GaiusC]

The smaller your court - for instance if you're a 1-province Count -, the longer and more frequent the downtime, I'd say.
Though it probably will never beat EU3 as a 2-provinces pagan who patiently waits for the Europeans to come and kick his sorry ass in 3 months

 

[James The 1st]

Does your BadBoy go down by itself?

 

[Landwalker]

Over time, it does. I believe the primary determinant for BB reduction is your leader's piety. This is one of the big arguments in favor of having a couple of bishoprics or arch-bishoprics—you gain piety like secular vassals allow you to gain prestige.

 

[James The 1st]

What does Stability do?

 

[Landwalker]

Stability influences the mean-time-to-happen for a number of events in the game. Negative stability makes damaging events like highwaymen/thieves guild/smugglers pop up more often, while positive stability makes good events happen more often. I don't remember all of them off the top of my head, but they're somewhere in the event files.

 

[James The 1st]

How do you gain/lose stability?

Thanks for your help, trying to learn CK and Vicky has sure kept me busy.

 

[Landwalker]

Well, generally speaking, "It's random." Certain situations can favor one or the other. For example, being at war increases the likelihood of a Stability Decrease event firing. (In my Lombardy learning AAR, I twice had situations where that event fired less than a month before the end of a war. Ouch.)

On the whole, they follow the pattern of "Good situations make good things happen. Bad situations make bad things happen." It would take too long to list all of the modifiers to the Improve Stability event(s), but here are a few just as examples of what makes the event fire faster/more often:

Having lots of gold (thresholds at 100, 1000, and 5000); having lots of prestige (at 100, 500, 2000); having lots of piety (at 0, 100, 500, 2000); having Royal Prerogative or Popular Law (Feudal Contract has the opposite effect, by the way); the fewer vassals you have, the more often it fires.

If you want to see the whole nine yards, crack open your CK folder and go to DB/Events/Stability_Events.txt. Once you understand how the event notation works, reading some of the event texts can shed a lot of light on how the game works. Of course, this takes a fair amount of time and patience, but then again, so does the game.

 

[GaiusC]

How do you gain/lose stability?

Obviously, not like in EU, you can't invest in it. All in all, it seems to be a random event that has increased likelihood to happen depending on your various stats - like said by Landwalker.


BTW, for those having sizable kingdoms, how much gold do you tend to keep in your coffers? Or do you invest most of it in provinces infrastructure and only hoard a bit when you plan a war?

 

[Count of Reval]

BTW, for those having sizable kingdoms, how much gold do you tend to keep in your coffers? Or do you invest most of it in provinces infrastructure and only hoard a bit when you plan a war?

I usually try to save sufficient amount of gold to be able to buy back at least some portion of vassals' loyalty in the case my ruler dies (and their loyalty takes a hit). The exact amount of gold is somehow determined by a gut feeling based on number of vassals, their overall loyalty, their titles and average wealth, your ruler's age/condition, heir's prestige etc.

 

[Quintarka]

I always accept a marriage if the girl is non-dynasty and not good enough to be given an office. If she is in my dynasty I will often marry her to one of my own male courtiers to breed more (often educating sons in the church to give me people to found bishoprics), unless my court is very big (which gives sickness events) in which case I marry her away.



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If you marry your daugter to males with higher position (ie dukes, kings, and their relations) you can gain prestige. So if you need prestige and you have a good daughter you might be better off giving her to a duke or a dukes brother or son than giving her to one of your courtiers

 

[James The 1st]

One other question, what excatly do advisers do?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

One other question, what excatly do advisers do?

They increase the stats of your ruler, which gives you extra bonuses and/or effects.

Marshall - The higher his martial-rating the quicker your troops get replenished. Also the better stats he has, the more likelier it is you win battles (that he is in) and it increases the chance for military discoveries

Chancellor - The higher his diplomacy rating the better it is, since that value (+ that of your ruler) has a large impact on your vassals loyalty. A good chancellor can give a +5 loyalty bonus per month

Spymaster - Increases the changes for successfull assinations and preventing assasinations against you

Steward - The higher his stewardship the more income you get from your province, the bigger your regiments are.

Diocese bishop - His effects are more indirect since he serves as a modifier for a lot of events

All advisors with a diplomacyrating of +7 may have an effect on the education of your children.

 

[TempestDK]

They increase the stats of your ruler, which gives you extra bonuses and/or effects.

Marshall - The higher his martial-rating the quicker your troops get replenished. Also the better stats he has, the more likelier it is you win battles (that he is in) and it increases the chance for military discoveries

Chancellor - The higher his diplomacy rating the better it is, since that value (+ that of your ruler) has a large impact on your vassals loyalty. A good chancellor can give a +5 loyalty bonus per month

Spymaster - Increases the changes for successfull assinations and preventing assasinations against you

Steward - The higher his stewardship the more income you get from your province, the bigger your regiments are.

Diocese bishop - His effects are more indirect since he serves as a modifier for a lot of events

All advisors with a diplomacyrating of +7 may have an effect on the education of your children.

... one important thing to add to this:

Do NOT appoint disloyal advisors. Rather have a less skilled but loyal steward, that a highly skilled disloyal one. If their loyalty is low, they can trigger nasty events. F.x. a disloyal Marshal can disband your army at the worst possible time. The Steward can somehow manage to steal more money than you actually have (and it can be huge sums). The Spymaster can plot to kill you.

 

[Morrell8]

Also, to add onto the advisor thingi, if you marry your son to the most uber awesome courtier and you want to grant him some land you can keep the courtier by appointing her to her uber awesome place. I think, someone correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Also, to add onto the advisor thingi, if you marry your son to the most uber awesome courtier and you want to grant him some land you can keep the courtier by appointing her to her uber awesome place. I think, someone correct me if i'm wrong.

That is correct and your son and that courtier can still get childrern, eventhough they are not in the same court