Crusader Kings and games of that ilk

kinda late to this thread but yeah ck2 can break your brain. I recommend not playing ironman and just reloading your save every time you do something stupid, which will happen all the time. another suggestion is to try a game in ireland which people online refer to as tutorial island.. if you bought a bundle with most of the dlc ireland is confusing if you play before 1066. Ive played the game since launch and I barely understand how tribal holdings work. christian holdings are far easier to understand.

it's so good. first - it's totally worth the investment and generates stories better than almost any other game i've played.

i also second trying as ireland. particular pick the county of dublinn which has a slightly easier time of amassing power (iirc once your old man in the county over dies you inherit it and are then just one more county away from forming a duchy). you can also pick one of the brothers in spain. iirc one is really good at intrigue, one at military and one at idk i don't remember so you can experiment with different styles.

ultimately ime you have a few goals that should be driving you forward (at least until you feel comfortable w/ the game and can freestyle). you need to secure your dynasty bc if you die without an heir you lose the game. this is the only way to lose. (or if you lose every last title maybe? but as long as you have a county and an heir the game goes on). so get married right away. try to find a wife with good stats - they all boost yours. there are certain attributes they can have that are desirable too for genetic reasons - like attractive, quick, or the best, genius. make sure she's of child bearing age and you shouldn't have any problem getting an heir.

then the game becomes about acquiring more land basically until you can form a duchy and ultimately a kingdom and an empire. there are three main ways of doing this. one is through exploiting inheritance laws. like if you marry a princess of hungary and execute enough ppl maybe you can set it up so your son inherits hungary along w/ whatever you leave him. the second way is through pushing legitimate claims. if you form a duchy or a kingdom then you suddenly have a claim on all the historical counties of that duchy so you can prosecute war that way (or just demand fealty from the current owners). you can also manufacture claims by using your steward. that'll be a big part of any game ime if you have ambitions.

the other thing to work on early is changing your laws since you'll almost always start out with gavelkind which will fracture your kingdom upon death and disperse all your titles to different sons. you want to change that as soon as possible to either primogeniture (your eldest inherits everything) to keep the kingdom intact. if you don't like your eldest you can always have him killed, or switch to ultimogeniture (youngest inherits), or if you're feeling bold feudal elective gives you the most flexibility - if you can monopolize the vote you can always handpick your successor and your subjects like this the most, bc they can potentially win the kingdom. which is why it's the riskiest option too. balancing keeping your subjects happy against your foreign aspirations is probably the main mechanic of the game. almost the moment you raise levies of your subjects they start begrudging it and they constantly want more decentralized government and lower taxes.

one final tip is that your actual real power is measured in your own county holdings. you are get to be a duke or a king because you can back it up through historical claims and might. so work on improving your home county. if you continually invest in it during times of peace (building the various military holdings) you can build a sizable personal army just through your own demesne and thereby limit the amount of time you need to borrow your subjects' troops as well as dissuade any potential usurpers.

nb all this is practical advice when playing as one of the main (original content mostly) christian european countries. if you're playing as pagans or muslims or jews or pretty much anyone else the dynamics change dramatically and all kinds of rules get broken). but this is a good starting pt and feel free to ask any questions here.

I tried to play this game once when it was on a steam free weekend. I started as some count in Britain, within a few minutes everyone was rebelling against me. Good game imo.

Watch some tutorial videos on YouTube - that’s what I did.

Nobunaga's Ambition on the PS4 is good. By which I mean I struggled with it for a while, decided if i sunk a fuck load of time into this it looks like it would be great and put it back in the box. but it did look v good. feudal japan.

Free (to permanently own) on Steam this weekend.

this game seems amazing and up my alley, but i couldn't even get through the tutorial. like i can't figure out the interface or anything that's going on in the slightest, and the wiki and beginners guides are of no help either. i doubt anyone can explain to me online, just wanted to whine, and it appears i'm not totally alone. i have a few friends who play it, maybe they can sit down with me and help me figure out wtf is going on

(ck2, i should say)

I have given up on paradox games bc the UI is just so horrible I never really get to grips with the underlying mechanics and just feel like I'm drifting through games, which is not as pleasant as it sounds ime

paradox games are def something where you shouldn't bother unless you have a friend to onboard you

I tried Crusader Kings II and nope, it's impenetrable. I'd rather read about it than actually play. I read a great Dwarf Fortress guide once, I would never consider actually playing Dwarf Fortress.

I'm in the same position -- I think part of my problem was a lot of the tutorials people recommend are based on a map that got modified in an update, so one can't follow the play through in the same way. I kept sitting there thinking, "Is something supposed to be happening now?" after taking actions, without knowing if it was my ignorance or just the game. At this point I am resigned to amusing myself with screenshots people post to the reddit.

i'm not sure if this is the video series i watched when i first played but i think it is and it really helped (and if it isn't maybe it's still good - i think watching youtube vids learning about it is probably the best way)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA9nlQsgq14

should have some time this weekend to dive in with that video, thank you!

I 'got it' after watching some youtube vids.

don't we have a Paradox thread? couldn't find it.

anyway: CRUSADER KINGS III!!!111

https://kotaku.com/rejoice-for-crusader-kings-iii-is-coming-1839186137

paradox games are pretty rough. I probably have 2000 hours combined in eu3/eu4, ck2, and victoria2. I got imperator on sale this weekend and I have no idea what I'm doing.

the only thing I can recommend to help with the learning curve is watching some youtube lets play videos to get a sense of whats going on then a lot of trial and error. ck2 is rough because all the laws in the various reals are super confusing to keep straight and you can ruin your game pretty easily if you don't know whats going on. also start a game in ireland in 1066. it's not called tutorial island for nothing.

the latest in the game series that really needs to change its name came out today. about 9 minutes ago, in fact.

*installs*

word on the street seems to be good, for this new one, but also these days the game won't really be complete until all the DLC and patches and game-balancing is complete, sometime in the mid-2020s

i'll report back later this evening (possibly at 3:30 am, as a ruined person). i think most people are especially interested in changes to the learning curve, quality of life things, changes to the UI and menu, etc. Early reports are that it's much easier to figure out what is going on, this time around.

i heard there's a functional tooltip thing this time around

was psyched for this til i found out my crappy macbook is short on RAM

this is more of an aspirational goal, but eventually i'd like to attempt a campaign where i invent my own dumb religion, convert everyone, and then run over the holy roman empire and ban christianity

xp ruh roh - yeah...my macbook may be straining too. i have the RAM (16GB, compared to 12GB minimum), but not the video card (i have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2GB, compared to the "AMD® Radeon™ PRO 560 (4 GB)" minimum)

ck3 is on game pass so i hesitantly gave it a shot, this video helped me feel less intimidated, and i really took my time with the tutorial as well (which is actually, well, a functioning tutorial, unlike past installations). and the enhanced tooltips and help features really help as well. optimistically i would say i understand about a third of what is going on, but i know enough to have a good time. picked a random yuighur realm, fairly powerful so i can ease into the mechanics while not having to worry about too many threats. had my oafish heir meet a sad end on a hunting trip, trying to figure out how to get rid of an obnoxious counsiloor who keeps hitting on my wife, and my current heir is on his way to being a hotheaded schemer, so looking forward to playing as him as well. curious to see what happens when it comes time for the transfer of power- i guess even very experienced players can get caught by surprise by arcane title and succession laws

https://youtu.be/AbGDKTBQrHI?list=PLwVftHdWAdHNVf2RuGGVA3AQnD5EJ5aqj

anyway, this video is quite well done, and there are 8 follow ups that go into further detail on specific topics

oh, and two of my sons were actually fathered by my spymaster

court drama!

i haven't played much since it came out, as my gaming time has been swallowed up by a divinity original sin 2 four-player co-op campaign, along with Hades. but of the handful of times i've invested serious time in a CK campaign, it's always been a relatively boring/safe location, like the pre-Ireland with the Murchads or pre-Spain, Castile and Leon stuff - basically the ones everyone recommends for newcomers.

what is it like to play as a yuighur realm? does it play similarly to playing in a western european scenario?

it's either a clan or tribal government, can't remember which, which limits your ability for adjusting various succession laws. this is the furthest i've ever gotten into the game so it doesn't make much difference to me. if anything it simplifies things

anyone taken / thinking of taking the plunge on Victoria 3? never played the old ones and in fact i've never fully gotten over the hump on any Paradox franchise but i'm intrigued by what i gather is the focus of this one (i.e. not role-playing like CK, not a war simulator like HOI, less direct emphasis on conquest than in EU). just... run a country! any country! at an absurd level of micro and macro detail!

idk, i'm sure if i bought it i'd bounce off it pretty quick but i'm really really tempted

i bailed on the CK3 demo after an hour so no, not me

the voice of conscience. think my wallet agrees with you. and yet...

someone please come in now and tell me how how much fun it is and how i should certainly buy it this very evening, no regrets and no guilt

I wasn't trying to put you off tbf, just acknowledging I don't have brainpower/patience any more

vic2 is the paradox game i like so i’ve been kind of interested in this too but idk tbh i hate this boring company and their torrent of dlc and their one ugly interface they use for everything

THAT SAID the vic focus on the demographic or class rather than the individual or even rly nation as structuring unit (what party are the preponderance of flemish artisans supporting; what are the current grievances of the walloonian bourgeoisie; what is the level of war weariness amongst brazilian peasants etc)— esp when your instruments for manipulating these units are so contingent and third-order removed— makes for a p interesting toy, if it sounds to you like it would. a lot of nice pie charts.

Oh the DLC does irritate, I hate the thought of how much you have to pay out to get the full experience, again a me problem really but still

Not at all, you’re bang on. I’ve never yet got my money’s worth out of a paradox game but I always convince myself that this time will be different.

I’m positive that if I put a few hours in to push past that barrier, this time…

Xp to NV

The dlc thing would bother me more from another company I think but Paradox feel like they do listen to their player base and try to give back in other ways.

And thank you dlh for coherently articulating what intrigues me about this one

I’ve given paradox enough money with all the eu4 dlc’s and games i bought so I thought I’d pirate this. Then I got distracted and figured what better time than now to start a mega campaign: imperator-ck3-eu4-vic3-hoi4-Stellaris. Problem being I have only played a combined hour of everything bar eu4 (probably 1000 hours).

So anyways, learning imperator is fun. God these games are good if they hook you, it’s just suuuuuuuch an investment before that hook happens. Was impressed with how pretty vic3 was when I loaded it up. Hopefully I can get to it.

Okay, Imperator is actually really good and fun. Like EU4 for kids, so much simpler and streamlined. Better for small hits. Very nice flavour to it