Crusader Kings II

[BruceVC]

It's a factor of the learning curve, not the game's bugginess. I've invested some 80 hours in the game and I still find new features and doodads.

 

 

No Bruce, it's just that when you don't know the game a lot of things can seem random and/or unfair. I remember thinking the same a lot of times in EUII, until I slowly understood the features of the game and saw that I had acted prematurely or had misunderstood how something worked and so on.

 

Okay Melk I tried to play the famous " the issue lies with a bug in game" card to explain your frustration but it seems like you need to spend more time on the game. Sorry buddy I tried

[melkathi]

Eehh, some of the things I saw do seem like glitches:

The same siege event triggering 4 times in a row if on a loop. Read: I press the ok button at the bottom and the event pops right back up again and again. As no time passed at all between them, it seems like a glitch/bug and not just character skill and a dose of bad luck.

A child gets events growing up to determine its traits. These are random. Fine so far. But when an event triggers and closing it imediatly triggers the opposit event, that looks like a glitch where the game had determined that an event of category X would appear, but glitched on determining which one.

It has nothing to do with not understanding.

 

Not understanding comes into effect with my extreme dislike of how diplomacy and war work out:

The kingdom I am in is at war with the neighbouring kingdom over who should own one of their provinces. We are at war with them over their land, but I cannot invade, because I personally have no Casus Beli and no claim. To assist my King/Queen further than the odd levy they raised, seems impossible.

Helping people seems to not affect anything. For example 3/4 of Scottland are in open revolt. It seems to me like a classic gambit: join the rebellion and be one of many, sit it out, or be the one person who stays loyal and, should the king win, be his most trusted vassal. Right? I couldn't figure out how to join the rebellion, as the faction disbands upon presenting their ultimatum and there seemed to be no option to say "Hai guyz? Can I haz rebeljoon?" Sitting out wasn't really an option since they'd probably decide to attack me anyway. So I muster my levies, hire some mercenaries and kick them pretty much all the way to Norway. Having martial and intrigue both over 30, being specialized on difficult terrain and a leader of infantry on top of being the most technologically advanced in military matters in the kingdom -  all that helped of course. You'd think that my dynasty, being the loyal subjects who beat back the rebellion and kept the king in power would be rewarded. My reward? The king created a new dutchy, gave it to his son and transfered me form crown vassal to vassal of the new duke. As a result I was out of kingdom politics, could no longer see factions in the kingdom, but had to mess around with politics within the duchy. Then the king started a plot to assassinate me. From my 10 horus in-game I learned: don't be on the winning side and don't help anyone. Only if they hate you will the AI try to make friends. After all, when I, as an experiment, reloaded an old savegame to see what would happen if I rebelled as a third faction, instead of all that, the King offered me the position as chancelor at the royal court...

 

What just annoys me as game design is that when I try to buy the release of a prisoner, the game states the gold you would pay and whether the other person will accept or not. You can't adjust the gold. I would have been willing to quadruple the stated number. That is not possible. I understand that the game in reality just says you whether the other side is willing to release the prisoner at all, and it doesn't actually care about the amound, but it feels wrong to me.

 

And thats all from me, I think its better I'll leave the thread to the people who actually like the game

Edited June 25, 2013 by melkathi

[Rosbjerg]

Nooo you must love it!!

 

Fair enough, looks like you were indeed unlucky with bugs.

[Rostere]

If you try CK2 for the first time (or any Paradox game really) don't try to do everything at once, just chillax until you feel you know how things work. I also would not recommend starting as a (vassal) duchy since this can make things more complicated and specifically more arbitrary, since you will have the AI as your liege. Start out as King of Sweden, Poland or Hungary and you will be able to fight both against neighbour heathens/infidels (which is usually the primary expansion mechanism) and deal with some Christian countries.

 

melkathi: There is a diplomatic option to "Offer to Join War", if you're not already engaged, that is.

 

Actually, the King offering you a place in his court if you join a faction is actually sensible. The AI are tempted to join factions if they are disappointed with you (low relations). If you manage to raise their relation to you to 100, they will in most cases leave the faction. So as a player, if you have a high stewardship vassal in a faction with +90 opinion of you, it can be quite strategic to put him on the council as a steward since that will give him that little extra push to +100.

 

Secondly, as a vassal you are ****ed. The goal as a vassal is ALWAYS to take over the kingdom or to break free from your liege (and in some cases, these are connected). It might be strategic to be under the protection of a liege in some situations, but that's pretty easy to resolve. Do you see any foes you can't match who are likely to conquer you? If not, it's not good to be part of a kingdom as a duke. That said, the primary threat is most often the kingdom you are a de jure part of.

 

It's clear that the king in your game wanted to replace you with nobles of his own bloodline. If Scotland is not an elective monarchy, that is also strategically sound.

 

What you describe is cuckoo politics - the king will always reward the malcontent vassals which are powerful enough to matter and disregard the already loyal ones, especially those who are not very powerful. On the other hand, he will seek to replace vassals who might pose a long-term problem, in this case non-bloodline vassals in a non-elective monarchy.

[NOK222]

Anyone play the Game of Throne Mods?

[Zoraptor]

Yes, though not in a while. It's good, and has the potential to be genuinely excellent, great attention to detail and the game system really fits well. Only real drawback is that the time scale is a bit off (ie all the recognisable characters disappear a bit too quickly) and that's unavoidable.

[NOK222]

Well, I don't know how, but I played as little finger and bought peace to the seven kingdoms. 

[BruceVC]

little finger and bought peace to the seven kingdoms

I have an issue with any game that strays too much from the original plot in a movie or plot. What you mentioned is like playing some game around Lord of the Rings and having Sauron come down from Mordor to arrange a picnic with the Hobbits, or rather that's more likely to happen than Little Finger bringing peace to the Seven Kingdoms

[Tagaziel]

That issue stems from the fact that the base game is all about unpredictable, non-linear gameplay. Paradox tried linear games before, Europa Universalis 2 being an example, but the system was screwed up. Oh, you have a +3 stability Poland with maxed out sliders guaranteeing a very progressive state that doesn't repeat the mistakes of real history? Well, **** you, you're getting those terrible events either way.

 

At least the game didn't partition Poland automatically on 1772. Maybe the fact that I unleashed hell on Russia, occupied Moscow and generally been very nasty towards them when diplomacy failed.

[NOK222]

 

little finger and bought peace to the seven kingdoms

I have an issue with any game that strays too much from the original plot in a movie or plot. What you mentioned is like playing some game around Lord of the Rings and having Sauron come down from Mordor to arrange a picnic with the Hobbits, or rather that's more likely to happen than Little Finger bringing peace to the Seven Kingdoms

 

It's as not as Black and White as that. 

[BruceVC]

 

 

little finger and bought peace to the seven kingdoms

I have an issue with any game that strays too much from the original plot in a movie or plot. What you mentioned is like playing some game around Lord of the Rings and having Sauron come down from Mordor to arrange a picnic with the Hobbits, or rather that's more likely to happen than Little Finger bringing peace to the Seven Kingdoms

 

It's as not as Black and White as that. 

 

 

Really? I've read the books and I stand by my opinion of Little Finger. Send me a PM if you know something about his character I don't know. I would be interested to hear?

[Keyrock]

 

little finger and bought peace to the seven kingdoms

I have an issue with any game that strays too much from the original plot in a movie or plot. What you mentioned is like playing some game around Lord of the Rings and having Sauron come down from Mordor to arrange a picnic with the Hobbits, or rather that's more likely to happen than Little Finger bringing peace to the Seven Kingdoms

 

[off-topic]See, I think people got Sauron all wrong.  Morgoth (Melkor) got an idea for this great jam and he started rocking out.  His pops showed up and told him to turn off that racket.  Morgoth told him he was a fuddy duddy and didn't understand music.  Later on, Sauron heard Morgoth's jam and thought to himself "Man, that's a rockin' jam, I want to rock out to that."  So he did.  Sauron just wanted to rock out, is that such a bad thing?[/off-topic]

 

Anyway, in a game ruled by randomness all the developers can do is to design characters and situations in such a way so as to have the historical outcome be the most likely scenario.  When there are thousands or millions of random chance rolls, the most likely outcome isn't always the one that will come out, thus weird **** happens.  I'd personally much rather play a game where weird **** happens from time to time than a rigidly structured, historically accurate, interactive movie. 

Edited June 26, 2013 by Keyrock

[NOK222]

It's not easy to love Ahura Mazda. 

Edited June 26, 2013 by NKKKK

[Oerwinde]

Is there any way to have a smooth succession? My great Scandinavian Emperor wjo everyone loved died, his son took the throne and spent 2 years bringing his vassals out of negative opinions only for him to die young with a female heir, commence collapse of the empire.

[NOK222]

Elective Succession. 

[alanschu]

If you're Norse, that's part of the challenges you will have.  They have increased penalty for a short reign.  Coupled with Gavelkind and it can be tricky for sure.

[NOK222]

Which is why you need to reform the Norse religion asap