Various newb level questions

[oyoyoy]

Greetings fellow paradoxian crusaders,

I've recently started playing this game. The version I'm using is DV 2.1 beta patch vanilla. After a few short test runs as a minor country I'm now having a go at creating a napoleonic French empire.

I did nothing but build province improvements and fine-tune various sliders the first few years. Everything was looking rosy with all vassals being as happy as could be. I even got Brittany + 1 or 2 minors volunteering to join as vassals. My coffers were full (~2k gold) and my northern/eastern borders were presumably safe due to my alliance with Germany. So...

I decided to do an Iberian crusade halting the muslim takeover south of my borders. 2 days after I declared war on the infidels some Douchy decide to break away from Germany and the Germans ask me to come to their aid. The good ally I am I ofc accept. The result was... peculiar. The break-away Douchy (I forgot the name, lets call them Douchy A) was allied to Douchy B, still a vassal of Germany. Douchy B instantly declare war on me, as does their liege Germany. This leads me to...

Question no 1: Surely this in not supposed to be this way? Is there any way to circumvent this sort of unintended results?

Germany continues to lose vassals at an alarming rate and despite the accidental way I got into this mess the result is not all bad. I defeat both the Iberian kalifat and the Germans fairly easy. During these wars the same thing happens that have happened every game so far; I am spammed with peace offers every other day. Clicking "decline" a gazillion times during every war is very tedious.

Question no 2: Is there a simple way of modifying away the peace offer spamming?

I come out of the wars having become king of both Burgundy and Italy in addition to my French crown + a few new vassals from across the former German empire. I also got so fed up with the peace offer spamming I ended up accepting 2 of them, making me the count of 5 provinces in total. I gave 3 to my offspring, but still end up having a tarnished reputation. The result is that several new and old vassals start losing loyalty (despite scutage on minimum setting) and I'm having to run around playing whack-a-mole with them for years to prevent losing what I gained in the wars. Those that declare independence rather than revolt I'm forced to just let to so as not to further damage my reputation.

Question no 3: Are there some simple do's and dont's on vassal/reputation management that I have missed? Any good advice on keeping large empires happy/loyal?

I was slowly getting back on track, improving my reputation by letting time pass and playing it nice (which = "re-vassalating" rebellious counts and dukes rather than take their lands, so as not further damaging my reputation). Then the game-breaking incident sneaks up on me. The pope has learned about my sceptical trait and gives me an impossible choice: pay him 1k gold (my coffers are now empty), lose the sceptical trait (= going from an intrigue of 3 to 2) + losing a bunch of prestige or take a 50% chance of being excommunicated. I foolishly chose the latter alternative.

Long story short this completely ruined the game. Every vassal I have apart from the useless provinces given to my sons are on their way to rebel. I only have 2 useful army-producing provinces and having every vassal revolt spells end of game as far as I can tell. So...

Question no 4: How do you get out of this mess? Cheat?

I believe I gotta chose between starting over (not sure how to avoid landing myself in the exact same position once more) or edit my save.

Question no 5: Can you recommend the best/easiest way of editing saves on the game? Notepad? Maybe some kind soul can explain in detail how I go about removing that cursed excommunicated trait.

I have been looking around the forums at various editors/modding tools, but they all seem to be from 2004 or thereabouts. Not so sure that's a good option today on the version I'm using (released in 2008 iirc)?

Any comments/answers are appreciated!

Cheers,
Oy

 

[Raczynski]

You should have paid the gold to the pope. You can go in debt. -1k is really nothing for France. At worst, you'll have to sell some improvements or lose some prestige for calling the Estates General. Really, that's nowhere near game breaking.

 

[oyoyoy]

I know I chose the wrong option. That was not one of my questions. The game breaking part was when I chose not to pay the pope and there's no way to reverse that now. That's unless you can tell me how to reverse the resulting excommunication ;-)

Oy

 

[Lord of Pain]

#1 Tip for the future: You shouldn't join an ally's war, there are no penalties from declining. The AI like waging frequent wars and should be avoided unless for its for role-playing purposes. To force a peace on someone: Press F12, type "byzantine" (without the ""), send an offer to Germany, they'll accept it, press F12 and type 'byzantine' again to deactivate.

#2 It's annoying, but no, sorry.

#3 Here are a few vassal/reputation tips:

• Kings rule Dukes & Dukes rule Counts. The reason for feudalism is practically the same for why we today have a national government, regional governments and local governments within every nation; to ease the administrative workload, improve effectiveness of security, commerce and development. If a king rule too many counts, then the counts will start becoming disgruntled over not being heard, which then leads to rebellion. Here's a duchy map. I let each duke rule over at least 2 duchies.
  
• Don't conquer land too quickly. The medieval wars weren't like our modern winner-takes-it-all wars. They were about dynasties, intrigues, Mongols and religious conversions. If there's a war in Germany, don't claim their title, just demand reparations. If the other party is a rival, then fight the war until the rival dies.
  
• Don't make claims on titles manually, you gain a bad repuation. Let most claims come through character events. I usually let my reputation go down to 'tarnished' reputation before claiming again.
  
• High diplomacy skill, feudal law, shared bloodline and the ruler's prestige raises vassal loyalty. If you have a bad personality (cruel, hostile, etc.) then people will like you less.
  
• Family comes first. Have a title to give away? Give it to someone within your dynasty. Have a daughter to give away? Give her to a vassal's son.

#4You should have paid the man. Remember, that according to the Roman Church, the pope is the vicar of Christ and the Pope's position is approved by the invisible man himself. In medieval times, the papal power was viewed as the sole universal power and had the right to depose Kings and Emperors. So when the pope excommunicates you, he's telling all Christians that you been a naughty boy and in dire need of some spanking. But don't worry, if you still have the king titles then the counts and dukes will come back into the fold after a few years or decades. Bad rulers are quite fun actually, as long as you have better ones later on. I've had half of Europe under my banner when a civil war struck and my beautiful Empire just disintegrate right in front of my eyes, but the most fun part of that game was rebuilding, crushing the usurpers and executing my rivals.

For an historic comparison, when the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV got excommunicated, the empire plunged into a civil war for a decade and Henry proved his penance to the pope by walking barefoot from the middle Rhine, over the Alps, to northern Italy in a painfully coarse garment to beg the pope for forgiveness. Despite this, the civil war continued and didn't end until the next Emperor had been elected.

#5 No need for cheating, excommunications can be revoked if you're lucky, or just wait till he and his heir takes over, it'll only be a few years.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Seems to me the Paradox crew made this live action trailer for Crusader Kings 2 just for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpAYY3BvviE


BTW: Theres an advanced search option on top of this side as long as your logged in.
But well, you found somebody answering your questions.

Good look and enjoy the experience of trouble in CK.

 

[oyoyoy]

@Lord of Pain: Thanks a lot for the answer!

#1: Refusing to answer an ally's call for help would be on par with cheating imo. In this instance forcing a peace through "cheating" would probably give the most accurate/plausible result, the least gamey approach. Thanks for the tip!

#3: I believe I've stuck to most of the tips. I've not manually claimed any titles apart from the 2 king titles I got (I got 0 provinces/vassals and 0 money as spoils of war from Germany. I figured I deserved something from the devilish ally that stabbed me in the back ). The only war I started was the one vs the muslims which should, in itself, not cause any badboy points(?). I don't start wars unless all vassals are at 100% loyalty, my reputation is impeccable and my coffers are full. I have given every single province (a grand total of 3) to my bloodline to ensure max loyalty. I also ensure I have a sound set-up of dukes governing a number of counts.

#4: I know I should have paid the man. That was the big mistake I made :blush: If I do continue the game the "empire" will undoubtedly be reduced to a fraction of what it was at the start of the game. The duke of Anjou alone commands a considerably bigger army than me. -And there's bound to be 2+ dukes revolting at any given time in the foreseeable future. Not sure I have the "guts" to carry on in that state

@Aardvark Bellay: I read your post pre-editing. Please ensure you read and comprehend what you reply to. Why someone would bother to post just to take the piss out of others is beyond me. My apologies if this is incorrect, but this is how I read you.

I have read every single visible thread in here + most of the various sub-forums. I've spent weeks looking for clues on playing the game before making a post myself. Doing a simple text-string search for what I was asking and getting useful (complete) answers is not straight forward. The complexity of what I was asking warranted creating a thread in my humble opinion. I suggest you go ask the admins to make this forum read-only if people asking questions bother you this much.

I did, in hindsight foolishly, add the word "newb" to my thread title. Somehow this seemingly leads people to believe I just unwrapped the game, played for an hour trying to instantly conquer the world and then rushed to the forums to whine about it being unsuccessful. That is very far from the truth. I play the game very "conservatively" and I have invested a lot of time understanding the game mechanics. As such labelling myself as a newb may be misleading.

Oy

 

[unmerged(15337)]

I am also a rather new player but I do have some experience with the game. Some points:

1. A 2K treasury balance for a major kingdom is really nothing. Fighting a serious war could cost you 10K or even 20 K easily (for example, a 5 year slugfest vs. the Seljuk Turks over Jerusalem).

2. It is possible to play through an excommunicated king's reign -- say, a 20 year period -- but it will be painful and frustrating. Based on my admittedly limited experience, you won't realistically be able to engage in foreign conquest during this time, except perhaps for a defenseless one-province isolated enemy. You'll have to rule your own realm with an iron fist, Ivan Grozny style, but it can be done. Excommunication isn't "game over" but you should avoid it at almost all costs. When you are excommunicated, you may get an event that will allow you to pay your way back into grace with the Pope. Do it -- but the cost is very high, something like 4 or 5 years income. The only time I would recommend declining the Pope's offer is if your king is pretty old and you think he will die soon anyway.

3. Watch out for your piety rating compared to the Pope's prestige. If your piety is too low you are at serious risk of excommunication. I've even had the misfortune (and I complained about it here bitterly) of paying the huge bribe in order to lift excommunication, only to be instantly excommunicated again! That episode called for a reload.

4. As mentioned above, you need not join your ally's war. There is no penalty for declining. In any case, look very carefully at who the enemy is before you join, as you can get caught in a nasty cascade as you saw. That particular kind of chain reaction is actually not all that rare. Be especially careful about joining your ally vs. his rebellious vassals. On the other hand, sometimes that leads to an easy conquest for you, if his rebel holds territory you had your eye on anyway.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

the[/B] big mistake I made :blush: If I do continue the game the "empire" will undoubtedly be reduced to a fraction of what it was at the start of the game. The duke of Anjou alone commands a considerably bigger army than me. -And there's bound to be 2+ dukes revolting at any given time in the foreseeable future. Not sure I have the "guts" to carry on in that state

Don´t cry. Heinrich had to stand in a linen shirt during winter outside Canossa begging for the popes removal of his excommunication on top of all you have listed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_to_Canossa