I have a confession to make. I'm not proud of it, but it just happened. It just happened. I have not been faithful to the beta for the past 24 hours due to Paradox's release of CK2: Legacy of Rome, and other miscellaneous DLC (thank you GamersGate for Blue Coins. You have my loyalty because my loyalty gets rewarded!).
OH MY G-D! It is amazing! EU1 got me hooked on Byzantine and Orthodox history, but this is just too much! I've had a blast with the new combat mechanics, retinues, factions, Orthodox patriarchs - I said this with Sword of Islam as well; I didn't think they could make this game any more addicting. But they have.
Right now I'm playing as Abyssinia, trying some sort of crazy Orthodox overthrow of the Fatimids. Any other crusaders/jihadis out there? Anyone else finding it hard to go to sleep at night and go to work in the morning ?
Maybe next sale.
There is a demo now!
Picked this up with the irresistable Plentiful Paradox Pack or whatever.
Well, CK2.
What expansions are there, and do I need them?
You don't really need the expansions, there are some that are kind of nice depending on your playstyle. I bought the Islam one, and have yet to ever play an Islamic character. For some reason, it doesn't interest me. But, I play a bunch of Orthodox nations, so Legacy of Rome was a good one for me. But if you just want to play a normal Catholic game, then you really don't need any of them.
I love Orthodox nations. Dangit...
So that's a good one for me. I love playing Ryazan, but it's much bigger in this game.
I actually managed to finally hatch a plot and conquer a province as a count in Ireland. But now that will be going away after inheritance! How do I stop this travesty??
Kill children. Killing children solves a lot of problems. Or change the inheritance laws if you can. Hopefully, if you planned ahead, you took over another conty in the same duchy as your own so now you can become a duke? If not, you may have to do some murdering.
You sound like my mom.
I hope it's in the same duchy, it's right next door... I'll have to look at the documentation and find out how to call myself a Duke - oh wait, what documentation?
Good to see that it's only $5 on Steam. $10 for the other two though. And so much DLC that I want to throw up. That stuff should have been included in the game to start with, no?
Well, we never had the options in CK 1 that the DLC provide in CK2.
What's a retinue?
They are groups of 500 soldiers that you hire. You can hire them = to the percent of your realms man power that you have in whatever tech tree it is. Different units have different costs, like archer - 1 point, H infantry - 2 point etc. They are always up and each culture has its own special retinue (Scotish Pikemen, Welsh Longbowmen, etc.)
Edit: You probably won't be able to get them anywhere near the start of the game unless you start as King, Emperor, or Something.
Start as King? I thought the whole point was to work my way up!
It is much funner to work your way up, but you will have to wait a bit to have any amount of manpower needed to field a retinue that way as it takes your and all your underlings levies into account.
The Earl of Ulster has become the Duke of Ulster... exciting stuff!
My brother rebelled against me last night. I captured him, and then blinded him. He rebelled again, so I kept him in prison a few years and then castrated him. I think he learned his lesson. Might have to kill his children too.
I am so obsessed with this game after I bought it for 10$ for the whole package on a sale. Saved me 117$ claims amazon.
In any case I am an assassinating ascendant. I kill up to a dozen people in a year, though that's rare.
I eventually plan to have a game where I conquer the whole map with just marriage and murder, no warfare at all. Though that will be hard. I did manage to marry into the Byzantines from my starting place as king of Poland, after I murdered my first wife of course, but I failed to get Hungary from my grandson and couldn't marry into Croatia at all. And I got Lithuania and Ruthenia by conquest. And since France and the HRE all have fucking Gavelkind you can't marry into power there like you can for the Bizzies. But some day I'll work it out. Probably have to ruler designer my way to 100 intrigue though.
We have gavelkind as well, which meant that when my first character died, it split the realm into a vassal countess and a duchess. Then, my character had a son! Woohoo, inheritance through males first!
So I thought, I should kill this countess and take back my land, being next in line. Unfortunately, she passed away from illness before I had a chance to just knock her off. So now I have Demense 2 again, and I'm starting to press my de jure claims against the rest of my duchy of Ulster, while still being squeaky clean. Though, piety took a hit as there's a crusade going on. How can I worry about that when there's so much to do locally?
If you kick ass in a crusade, you can gain a whole kingdom.
My 500 troops would certainly turn the tide. I am not in a position to kick butt. I can't even start that war against England that I have a claim on, thanks to the Prince of England being married to me...
I should write up an AAR, but I keep marrying people off to princes and kings from foreign lands... it's fun! My rulers continually birth daughters. In two rulers, one son only. 10 daughters.
As for DLC prices...Steam puts them all on 75% sale several times a year, just wait for that (assuming you got it on Steam of course).
And as you can see many of the "baby" DLC are just art and music so you can skip them, no gameplay there. However I pick them up when they are like 50 cents each on sale, what the heck.
Or even then. Sweden, for instance, has no urban center large enough to generate the learning necessary to hire a retinue for years. (The Danes have it easier.) And remember, when you first get one, it usually starts at one or two soldiers.
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