Most Interesting Sovereign to Play?

[Anthropoid]

This is a fascinating game. I've never really seen anything quite like it, and it did take a bit of getting used to. But now that I see the real appeal is in playing out a history and not blobbing to conquer the world as in so many games, I'm wondering: what are the most interesting nations to play?

I've fiddled with France 1066 and that is definitely cool, but seems a bit on the easier side.

 

[Gwyn ap Nud]

I've been having lots of fun as Croatia. You start in a bit of a dynasty crisis: only your king and his cousin, no children, no other family members, but once you get over that, once the Byzzies collapse, you can prey on their bits, and are well placed to go on Crusade as well.

 

[unmerged(84239)]

I think what I like the most is to spread an otherwise doomed culture.
There are provinces which have a certain culture, but are ruled by a foreigner.
Examples are basques, duthcies, abhazians...


I also lilke creating strange things. When I conquered the pechenegs as Serbia, and received an orthodox, pecheneg cultured courtier, I simply had to make him a count and continue playing as him!



I also like countries with elective law for added fun value




Also, I like eastern Europe, because more things happen there. Especially in the Crimea-Kiev area. Relatively rich lands, powerful neighbours (especially in 1337 scenario: mongols, teutons, lithuanians)

 

[TempestDK]

I've been having lots of fun as Croatia. You start in a bit of a dynasty crisis: only your king and his cousin, no children, no other family members, but once you get over that, once the Byzzies collapse, you can prey on their bits, and are well placed to go on Crusade as well.

If I remember right, the Croatian ruling family also has fertility problems, so that is an added challenge .. to get a good healthy dynasty going

The Iberian christians are fun too ... once you get a bit more experience. The Jiminez family hate each other, and there is the constant threat of the taifas in the south.

I had a good long game as the only Wendish catholic dynasty, the Nakonids of Lübeck. Was fun to try and get the upper hand on those nasty meklemburgians

Nubia can be interesting too ... but due to very bad starting position, it is best left for when you have more experience.

 

[Quarto]

Nubia can be interesting too ... but due to very bad starting position, it is best left for when you have more experience.

The trouble with Nubia is that you can only play it by exploiting game mechanics to do things that Nubia would never have done - instead of conquering Egypt one province at a time from the south, you have to play leapfrog, conquering bits of Sinai and other places as the opportunity arises.

One place that I enjoy a lot is Wales and Ireland - pick a duchy (usually, I take Gwynedd), unite the Celts on one side of the Irish Sea, then cross over and unite the Celts on the other side of the sea. Once you unite the kingdoms of Wales and Ireland, you kinda run out of things to do (unless England is sufficiently weak that you can start expanding Wales), but it's a fun game to ry.

 

[Anthropoid]

So do people ever do WCs with this game? I can't help my Civ-Addict tendencies and started adding provinces playing as Philippe (hadn't even got through one dynasty yet!) and once I had "inherited" some far away provinces from an impudent vassal (Agen, Saintonge, Poitier) I notice they were a serious liability in terms of intrinsic revolt risk.

As far as constraining the player on gamey ahisorical patterns of conquest and expansion, this seems to be one of the most 'realistic' games I've encountered. Refreshing, although also odd in that it doesn't allow me to just play like I have tended to play every other strategy game ever: megalomaniac expansionist.

Thanks for the suggestions! I think I'll keep going with my Kingdom of France restart for a while. Just learning all these characters and territories is a pretty stout learning curve!

 

[TempestDK]

The trouble with Nubia is that you can only play it by exploiting game mechanics to do things that Nubia would never have done - instead of conquering Egypt one province at a time from the south, you have to play leapfrog, conquering bits of Sinai and other places as the opportunity arises.

One place that I enjoy a lot is Wales and Ireland - pick a duchy (usually, I take Gwynedd), unite the Celts on one side of the Irish Sea, then cross over and unite the Celts on the other side of the sea. Once you unite the kingdoms of Wales and Ireland, you kinda run out of things to do (unless England is sufficiently weak that you can start expanding Wales), but it's a fun game to ry.

No .... you CAN eat Egypt from the south ... I have done so several times .... but it is difficult. Especially since every african king + his cousins declare war within months of starting

 

[TempestDK]

So do people ever do WCs with this game? I can't help my Civ-Addict tendencies and started adding provinces playing as Philippe (hadn't even got through one dynasty yet!) and once I had "inherited" some far away provinces from an impudent vassal (Agen, Saintonge, Poitier) I notice they were a serious liability in terms of intrinsic revolt risk.

As far as constraining the player on gamey ahisorical patterns of conquest and expansion, this seems to be one of the most 'realistic' games I've encountered. Refreshing, although also odd in that it doesn't allow me to just play like I have tended to play every other strategy game ever: megalomaniac expansionist.

Thanks for the suggestions! I think I'll keep going with my Kingdom of France restart for a while. Just learning all these characters and territories is a pretty stout learning curve!

People do it all the time ... and it is possible ofcourse. But it gets harder to keep a massive empire together the larger it gets. Suddenly your macho-silver tongued ruler dies and his 9 year old moronic son inherits, and all hell breaks loose

But that is part of the fun ... trying to keep at least some of your kingdom together and then gather the lost territory up later.

 

[Anthropoid]

I had a frickin' Chancellor steal about 666 ducats from me which put me solidly in the red by about -450 ducats!

Damn! Why can't i just walk up that bitch and plunge a knife between her cleavage!?!

Yeah, I definitely see the lure of the random historical factors and the personal-family stuff in this game. This game is like crack for history-nerd-fanboys! Too bad they have not yet made a similar type of game for other eras, though I guess it might get increasingly more difficult.

Must be an amazing database under the hood of this baby.

 

[TempestDK]

I had a frickin' Chancellor steal about 666 ducats from me which put me solidly in the red by about -450 ducats!

Damn! Why can't i just walk up that bitch and plunge a knife between her cleavage!?!

Yeah, I definitely see the lure of the random historical factors and the personal-family stuff in this game. This game is like crack for history-nerd-fanboys! Too bad they have not yet made a similar type of game for other eras, though I guess it might get increasingly more difficult.

Must be an amazing database under the hood of this baby.

Stole?? .. sounds more like the work of a disloyal Steward .... unless you tried to bribe your Chancellor.

Two things:

1. Keep your advisors loyal. Rather an inept loyal advisor than a brilliant disloyal one. Oh and don't ever ever ever give an advisory position to a rival.

2. A "bug" exists in the event chain when courtiers want money. Because the amount is scaled depending on the weath of the one the event fires for, you WILL see a massive difference in what the courtier demands and what you actually gives.

F.x. your chancellor is disloyal and wants money. The event says you can bribe her for 40 gold (because she has little or no money already). But when you choose that option another event fires for YOU ... where you fork out 650 gold. This is because the event scales to your income. So she gets 40 and you loose 650 .. the last 610 gold?? .. the messenger stole them

So be careful when accepting to pay them off ... since you never know how much it will set you back.

Bonus: you CAN plant a dagger in her cleavage ... just hire an assasin and let him do his nasty business on her

 

[Nick B II]

A CK WC looks much different then a Civ WC because CK requires vassals. But it is possible to get every King-title in the game, and have every County be part of your realm.

It takes a lot of luck, tho. There's always one guy whose pissed at his Duke and rebels.

Nick

 

[Codeblue]

Not sure. I've honestly had fun in every game of CK I've played. I play a lot as someone in Ireland, since my family is Irish. The most interesting game I had there was when I started as the Count of Urmumu and became king of Ireland. Of course, trying to contend with England always gives you a brick wall there, but I also inherited vassals in France, Spain and Germany to expand with.

Right now playing as Denmark and some very interesting family events have happened. That's the great thing about CK, no matter what boring dynasty you start as, as your court and family develops, the game can take a totally different turn.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

There are so many interesting sovereigns to play that it is hard to say which one is the most interesting one.

A game I still want to try at some point is to start as a Greek count and get the kingdom of Persia as my first kingtitle (Alexander's Dream I call that game). I started once as a Greek count, but at some point the culture of my dynastie became Armenian and Armenia become my first kingtitle.

I almost exclusively play the 1066 scenario. Though I played 2 long campaigns with the 1187-scenario. Once starting as John Lackland, duke of Meath (but that was with patch 1.03 or 1.04) and one very interesting game as the kingdom of Bulgaria.

So if you want to play one of the other scenario's then Bulgaria would be a very intersting choice.

 

[unmerged(84239)]

I started once as a Greek count, but at some point the culture of my dynastie became Armenian and Armenia become my first kingtitle.[/qoute]

OT, but do you happen to know which christian rulers are 'dark culture' at the scenario's start date?

(Armenia is strange, cause they show up as 'dark' in the selection screen, but are 'light' in game. What a pity...)

I almost exclusively play the 1066 scenario.

I either play 1066 or 1337.

1337 has some nice things like
- non-mongol, but powerful golden horde
- powerful teutons
- small Byzantium (good for revival game)
- challenging Denmark (3 provinces maybe?)

 

[Anthropoid]

Great suggestions guys! One thing I wish you could do in game is to the dirty work of an assassination yourself instead of paying. Sure, it should be risky, and fraught with reputation hits but it would be fun.

The other thing is being able to just intimidate, otherwise take actions against people in your court. As it is, all you can really do it seems is hire/fire them or pay to assassinate them!? It would be nice to be able to mess with them, else help them in other ways.

Listing exact birth dates for children would be neat too. Knowing that Natasha the 15 year old Princess is going to turn 16 in March (as opposed to December) of this year would be swell.

I restarted a couple times as Philippe of France in 1066 to get a hang for how it works (once I went on a conquering spree and realized the game simulates "bad rep" pretty effectively; once I totally ignored the Pope and didn't bother to pay him or keep the clergy happy and being excomunicated really has some teeth I see! <Yeah! Great design Paradox!!>; once I went on Crusade with a measly 1000K ducats in my treasury and quickly realized how inadequate that was to take on any Muslims).

Having now got a sense for how 'realistically' constrained the player is in his operations I'm onto a good solid match and up to about 1084. Philippe is getting close to 40, has had two or three wives, and has about 6 or 7 kids. The oldest Henri, just reached maturity and it looks like he is in many respects a more well-rounded noble than his dad (though Philippes 15 Martial is pretty macho).

So, I changed to Salic Consanguinity (based on a comment by you Veld in another thread) and my strongest heir will inherit.

I have seven "home" provinces (Ile de France; Amiens; Vexins; Reims; Sens; Chartres; and Orleans). As a consequence of my annexation of some of my neighboring small houses (Amiens, Champagne, Reims, Chartres) I've lost a couple vassals. Duchy of Aquitaine and Toulouse broke away, though they are both fairly loyal.

Of course if this were any other game the goal would be to keep nibbling away at neighboring provinces and adding more-more-more to my direct holdings, but I see that this is NOT just any other game, so I'm guessing that what I want to do is actually: (a) expand the KINGDOM of France by adding additional vassal; (b) create long-term marriages and other ties that can give me claims or inheritance of counties and duchies (either inside or outside King of France); and (c) focus on making my provinces as rich and happy as possible?

It seems like war is VERY costly in this game (which is as it should be). Granted, you sometimes get Techs discovered because you were at war, that you probably wouldn't have got otherwise, but Holy Craps! Losing hundreds of ducats a month to pay for an army of 10 of 15K guys is amazing! That is the most realistic representation of how militaries functioned in a "non-standing army" phase of history that I've ever seen!! Why didn't they do something similar to this with EU?

Anyway, just love hearing from youze guys and I think I like talking about this games almost more than playing them

Paradox rocks. These games are not fun the way Fallout 3 is fun, but they are awesome strategy games. So glad to see that this art form is NOT in danger of dying out!

 

[unmerged(84239)]

I have seven "home" provinces (Ile de France; Amiens; Vexins; Reims; Sens; Chartres; and Orleans). As a consequence of my annexation of some of my neighboring small houses (Amiens, Champagne, Reims, Chartres) I've lost a couple vassals.

When they are loyal, and you are not in need of provinces (to give it to heirs), it is usually not a bad idea to leave them as vassals.

- you can still use their army (you don't have to pay upkeep!)
- you get some of their income as scutage (I usually set it at 50%)
- they provide 'fresh genes' to the pool. The more dynasties, the less chance to see inbreads as your dukes!
- they provide historical feeling (I always want my starting families to live for as long as possible)
- you won't lose efficiency for having too many provinces


Depending on player, all use different strategies as province composition. What I usually do:
- keep a small, rich duchy to myself as family land
- have an other, developed duchy in my demense (what the heir will get to practice a bit and gather prestige)
- keep strategic provinces until necessery (=undeveloped, newly conquered, frontier provinces, until I build them up and give to a vassal)

 

[Anthropoid]

With my deeply-ingrained Civ habits, it is a real struggle to give provinces to anyone, even my sons! But I'm thinking that some strategic passing along is warranted to insure the dynasty?

Example: It is 1083 and I am Philippe King of France, Duke of Valois, etc., etc.

I have a son Henri who is 17 and has a higher Intrigue than me (7 vs my 2). He is not as militarily competent though.

I have the seven provinces I listed above, and Henri's younger brother is about age 14. I'm thinking that giving at least one Count title to each son as he gets old enough and shows promise in terms of his stats traits is the logical thing to do, since I'm operating at about 60% efficiency with my 7 provinces but only 2 (x2) = 4 capacity?

 

[unmerged(84239)]

With my deeply-ingrained Civ habits, it is a real struggle to give provinces to anyone, even my sons! But I'm thinking that some strategic passing along is warranted to insure the dynasty?

Example: It is 1083 and I am Philippe King of France, Duke of Valois, etc., etc.

I have a son Henri who is 17 and has a higher Intrigue than me (7 vs my 2). He is not as militarily competent though.

I have the seven provinces I listed above, and Henri's younger brother is about age 14. I'm thinking that giving at least one Count title to each son as he gets old enough and shows promise in terms of his stats traits is the logical thing to do, since I'm operating at about 60% efficiency with my 7 provinces but only 2 (x2) = 4 capacity?

1. as a rule of thumb, you don't want efficiency under 80% (under that, there are some nasty events causing stress for example)

2. Dynasty:
I always wait until my heir is able to marry. Choose the wife, and give the kid his (preferably developed - library, monastery, etc.) duchy.

I usually give provinces to other boys only when I have too much...




You should always give out provinces to vassals when you have too many. Doesn't make sense to keep them!

Gameplay-wise the best bet is to keep a few better provinces, and use the relatively big regiments for 'disciplining' bad (rebel) dukes.
WHILE trying to keep your dukes happy, take the scutage from them, and _use their regiments for fighting_.

 

[Gollevainen]

I had a frickin' Chancellor steal about 666 ducats from me which put me solidly in the red by about -450 ducats!

Damn! Why can't i just walk up that bitch and plunge a knife between her cleavage!?!

I once had chancelor who stole me 1500 ducats, twice during the same war when I allready was on - ducats and income (he was back then my heir or something and I didn't want to get rid of him so easily, so I didn't change it after the first event)

 

[Anthropoid]

I think I sorta get this game now; it is so contrary to typical strategy game design, I just can't believe how much more true to reality it is, and that was throwing me off for a long time.

It is (often) actually BETTER to directly control fewer provinces! Holy crap, that is a brilliant stroke of game design!

Did not realize vassal's regiments do not cost upkeep. Call me a lazy bastard, but it is my custom to never read rulebooks; just figure it out as you go.

My 2nd son Guy actually proved to be better than the first Henri. Henri became Count of Orleans at about 17 and Guy became Count of Sen at about 18. Then I made Guy Duke of Orleans to make him the likely successor. I've got one more son Philippe who matures in a couple years. If he turns out to be better, I'll make him count of Amiens, Vexin and Duke of Valois, give him enough territory that he'll be the likely successor.

So what are daughters good for again?

If I marry them off to powerful Kings and Dukes, won't that give them a possible claim on my dynasty? I've got the inheritance law where the strongest son inherits the realm, but daughters can act as a medium for inheritance.