Paradox Studio Thread

[Furina]

That's rough. He probably has a shit ton of piety, which grants combat bonuses. Heh. Fear is facing down a max piety Ottoman Empire as Poland...

I don't think he does. Because I'm playing as an African nation I have a pretty harsh penalty to technology development which my opponent doesn't, so they simply outclass me in terms of quality. I've also managed to piss off my former allies enough that they've teamed up with my worst enemy and now I'm stuck in a save where war (and ass-rape) is inevitable.

 

[Caesare]

Are you guys enjoying EUIV? I've played EUII and III extensively but I haven't jumped to IV yet.

I am thoroughly enjoying Crusader Kings II right now. You know how everybody says to start off as an Irish count, I'm giving that a shot and its going very well. I recently unified Ireland as a lowly count turned Petty King, now I'm the King or Eire. I sent my wise ass son and heir to Wales in order to get a Casus Belli since my previous Chancellor couldn't do it in 3 years I had him there trying to fabricate claims. My son did it in about 1/2 a year, which is nice because I didn't want to piss them off and have my heir be murdered since he's Super Boy with the high diplomacy.

Now I have 3 counties and a ducal title in Wales. Unfortunately, Super Boy's wife was past her prime and didn't have any kids, so I had to knock her off and find a better wife, so that took a minute but I finally got him married to a fellow "Gray Eminence" with high diplomacy so I can have Super Grandchildren. Unfortunately, he died of pneumonia not long after impregnating his wife, but all isn't lost, I have 6 other children to be my heir, and he at least managed to impregnate his wife, so with the type of Succession Laws the kingdom has, my unborn grandson with the impressive pedigree will be the next heir.

Guess what happens next? My grandchild is born, his wife dies of pneumonia right after she gives birth, and my grandchild is a girl, booo. Girls can't inherit with the kingdoms laws unless they have no other male heirs. I guess I can marry Super Girl to a distant cousin and keep her superpowers in the family.

 

[Jan_Hus]

Are you guys enjoying EUIV? I've played EUII and III extensively but I haven't jumped to IV yet.

I am thoroughly enjoying Crusader Kings II right now. You know how everybody says to start off as an Irish count, I'm giving that a shot and its going very well. I recently unified Ireland as a lowly count turned Petty King, now I'm the King or Eire. I sent my wise ass son and heir to Wales in order to get a Casus Belli since my previous Chancellor couldn't do it in 3 years I had him there trying to fabricate claims. My son did it in about 1/2 a year, which is nice because I didn't want to piss them off and have my heir be murdered since he's Super Boy with the high diplomacy.

Now I have 3 counties and a ducal title in Wales. Unfortunately, Super Boy's wife was past her prime and didn't have any kids, so I had to knock her off and find a better wife, so that took a minute but I finally got him married to a fellow "Gray Eminence" with high diplomacy so I can have Super Grandchildren. Unfortunately, he died of pneumonia not long after impregnating his wife, but all isn't lost, I have 6 other children to be my heir, and he at least managed to impregnate his wife, so with the type of Succession Laws the kingdom has, my unborn grandson with the impressive pedigree will be the next heir.

Guess what happens next? My grandchild is born, his wife dies of pneumonia right after she gives birth, and my grandchild is a girl, booo. Girls can't inherit with the kingdoms laws unless they have no other male heirs. I guess I can marry Super Girl to a distant cousin and keep her superpowers in the family.

I love ck2. I'd try to switch your succession laws to agnatic-cognatic so super girl can inherit the throne.

My favorite game was a custom Welsh King in the 700s named after my ancestor. The Umayadds converted to Miaphyisite Christianity, and I married into their family. I had welsh kings and queens descended from the prophet Muhammad, and had my dynasty on Charlemagne's Frankish empire.

I also restored the Roman Empire starting as Basil the Macedonian in 867...

There's also a Game of Thrones mod that's absolutely stellar.

 

[Jan_Hus]

I don't think he does. Because I'm playing as an African nation I have a pretty harsh penalty to technology development which my opponent doesn't, so they simply outclass me in terms of quality. I've also managed to piss off my former allies enough that they've teamed up with my worst enemy and now I'm stuck in a save where war (and ass-rape) is inevitable.

If you want a pretty good west African nation to play as, Kongo is probably your best bet. They get some flavor events about Portuguese missionaries and get an event to reform their tribal government to a feudal one.

I'd recommend playing as the Ottomans to learn the minutiae of the game. You can screw up massively as them (I had to fight off a coalition of all the European powers) and still be one of the top five nations.

 

[Caesare]

I love ck2. I'd try to switch your succession laws to agnatic-cognatic so super girl can inherit the throne.

Yeah Agnatic-Cognatic is what I have right now. I would have to change the Succession Laws to Absolute cognatic in order for her to inherit the throne. Agnatic-cognatic allows women to inherit if there are no eligible males, which works best for me since I typically have lots of kids. Absolute cognatic allows women to inherit on equal terms with males. It screwed me up this time because on this game as Eire I'm trying to create a very elite bloodline. I married my son to an older broad with very high stats to match his pretty good stats, they ended up having no kids the 6 years they were together until finally she got too old to have children. Executed her, found him another good wife (not as good as the 1st though), then they both die of pneumonia after only having produced one female heir.

Since Supergirl was my eldest son's(heir) daughter, she would have been the new heir once my son died if I was using absolute cognatic or if she was born male. I like agnatic-cognatic because it keeps things simple, though in this situation where my son died at 27 after having one non-male heir it would have definitely been nice if my granddaughter was allowed to inherit. Typically my kids live longer than that and have numerous sons and daughters so the issue of a male heir isn't a problem.

On the Paradox forums a lot of those guys like to go with elective but I wouldn't take that chance with my AI controlled vassals. They would end up voting for the sickly gay dwarf son with measles to be the next King, I know it!!

 

[Jan_Hus]

Yeah Agnatic-Cognatic is what I have right now. I would have to change the Succession Laws to Absolute cognatic in order for her to inherit the throne. Agnatic-cognatic allows women to inherit if there are no eligible males, which works best for me since I typically have lots of kids. Absolute cognatic allows women to inherit on equal terms with males. It screwed me up this time because on this game as Eire I'm trying to create a very elite bloodline. I married my son to an older broad with very high stats to match his pretty good stats, they ended up having no kids the 6 years they were together until finally she got too old to have children. Executed her, found him another good wife (not as good as the 1st though), then they both die of pneumonia after only having produced one female heir.

Since Supergirl was my eldest son's(heir) daughter, she would have been the new heir once my son died if I was using absolute cognatic or if she was born male. I like agnatic-cognatic because it keeps things simple, though in this situation where my son died at 27 after having one non-male heir it would have definitely been nice if my granddaughter was allowed to inherit. Typically my kids live longer than that and have numerous sons and daughters so the issue of a male heir isn't a problem.

On the Paradox forums a lot of those guys like to go with elective but I wouldn't take that chance with my AI controlled vassals. They would end up voting for the sickly gay dwarf son with measles to be the next King, I know it!!

You can go with Tansistry. It's elective, but the only people who can get elected are people from your own dynasty

 

[Caesare]

You can go with Tansistry. It's elective, but the only people who can get elected are people from your own dynasty

I was reading up on Tanistry today on the ck2 wiki, sounds interesting, I might have to try that. Seniority sounds kind of nice too, the oldest member of your dynasty gets all the titles. As long as someone from your dynasty is alive you can't lose.

 

[God of Nothing]

I got CK2 a few months ago and only really played through the tutorial. Today, I got my ass beat by a peasant revolt and two neighboring empires declaring war on me, an alliance declaring war on me, and successfully fought a war and utterly dominated the battlefield. Each happened in separate games. I either learn fast or this game isn't as complicated as it seems to be.

 

[Jan_Hus]

I got CK2 a few months ago and only really played through the tutorial. Today, I got my ass beat by a peasant revolt and two neighboring empires declaring war on me, an alliance declaring war on me, and successfully fought a war and utterly dominated the battlefield. Each happened in separate games. I either learn fast or this game isn't as complicated as it seems to be.

CK2 isn't really a difficult beast to play, now EUIV? That's a different story.

 

[Caesare]

I got CK2 a few months ago and only really played through the tutorial. Today, I got my ass beat by a peasant revolt and two neighboring empires declaring war on me, an alliance declaring war on me, and successfully fought a war and utterly dominated the battlefield. Each happened in separate games. I either learn fast or this game isn't as complicated as it seems to be.

Same here, I think I bought CKII and a bunch of the DLC when it was on sale I guess around 5 or 6 months ago. I have Old Gods, Charlemagne, the Country/Ruler Editor and about 2 or 3 more DLC's that I can't remember the names of. I too started with the tutorial where you play as the Jimenez dynasty of Leon in Northern Spain and you have to assassinate one brother and go to war with the other brother in order to unite your family lands. The game was going so well and I was enjoying it enough, that I decided to just keep playing it well after the tutorial ended. I ended up playing that game until just recently, when I started up a new game as an Irish count.

In my game as Leon, I reclaimed my family's lands, ended up conquering Navarre and parts of Aragon, while the whole game I kept marrying children into the Capet dynasty of France. Eventually, my grandson was only 2 people away from inheriting the throne of France. Some crafty assassinations took place and voila, my son is now King of France. This was problematic, since my character was still alive and healthy in his early 60s ruling a separate Castille, so I had my son killed and waited for my character to die of old age, therefore uniting Castille and France. I used my prestige to form "The Empire of Castille" consisting of most of the Iberian peninsula and France.

I ended up kicking all the Muslims out of Iberia and conquering everything besides Aragon. They are wary of marrying their daughters to me because they know of my devious intentions of using marriage claims for invasions. My borders are really pretty, the people at the Paradox forums would be proud.

I have the DLC which allows for viceroys and boy are those awesome when in charge of a large empire. You get to hand out ducal and kingdom titles to your loyal vassals, and when they die, instead of them being able to hand the titles to their children, it goes right back to you! Traditionally, in my game I would give the titles to the previous viceroy/vicerine's firstborn unless their loyalty wasn't up to snuff. For instance, the last time I loaded up the save file, my viceroy of France is a big fat lout who has the "vow of chastity" trait which keeps him from taking a wife or having children. I liked him because he was loyal till recently when he decided to join in on a costly rebellion to lower Crown Authority from "absolute". Last time I played on that save file, I've been giving viceroyalities to my own children lol.

 

[Caesare]

CK2 isn't really a difficult beast to play, now EUIV? That's a different story.

I loved EU3, how highly would you recommend EU4? I know its going to be good, its a Paradox game after all, but is it something I should go out and get immediately? Only reason I haven't gotten it yet is because I've been having so much fun playing CK2 and Jagged Alliance 2, as well as the PC version of Disgaea. With everything else going on in life, I figured another Paradox game, especially a EU game, would suck up even more time that I really don't have lol.

 

[Jan_Hus]

I loved EU3, how highly would you recommend EU4? I know its going to be good, its a Paradox game after all, but is it something I should go out and get immediately? Only reason I haven't gotten it yet is because I've been having so much fun playing CK2 and Jagged Alliance 2, as well as the PC version of Disgaea. With everything else going on in life, I figured another Paradox game, especially a EU game, would suck up even more time that I really don't have lol.

I think it's better than CK2 in all honesty... Each major country feels unique and has its own flavor. I never played EU3, but from what I've heard it manages to keep what made that game great. I recommend getting a few of the major DLC packs though. Art of War and the Cossacks are must haves in order to get a full experience.

 

[Caesare]

I think it's better than CK2 in all honesty... Each major country feels unique and has its own flavor. I never played EU3, but from what I've heard it manages to keep what made that game great. I recommend getting a few of the major DLC packs though. Art of War and the Cossacks are must haves in order to get a full experience.

Thanks for the info! That is one of the main things I'm enjoying about CK, the fact that it is so different from EU focusing on family/dynasty before country. But EU is where I started, well actually, Hearts of Iron 1 is where I started, but my heart will always be with Europa Universalis. I played EU2 and EU3 extensively back in the day. I watched a few minutes of LP's from EUIV so to not spoil too much of it but its a EU game so I more or less know what to expect and I know its going to be excellent.

 

[God of Nothing]

Has anyone ever played a possessed character in CK2? It makes your bishops pissed at you but you get a nice martial bonus thanks to the voice of Jesus. The only bad things about it is sometimes your character changes their religion which can lead to someone declaring a holy war on you.

 

[Jan_Hus]

Has anyone ever played a possessed character in CK2? It makes your bishops pissed at you but you get a nice martial bonus thanks to the voice of Jesus. The only bad things about it is sometimes your character changes their religion which can lead to someone declaring a holy war on you.

I... uh... had a child who turned out to be the antichrist... I won't spoil that event chain for you... but it's in there...

 

[God of Nothing]

Huh, I hope I get to encounter that event again.

 

[Jan_Hus]

Huh, I hope I get to encounter that event again.

The actual antichrist event chain is insanely rare. It's MTTH for players is about 500 years standard. Can be decreased if a characters' parents have traits like "mystic" "scholar" "possessed" "lunatic" "zealous" "lustful" "Mastermind Theologian." And to trigger it, a player has to have a child under the age of three...

 

[God of Nothing]

Well, shit.

 

[Jan_Hus]

Well, shit.

It's an oh shit moment when the little bastard murders half your dynasty in order to claim the throne... Not saying anything else...

 

[God of Nothing]

I went through that part. It was some freaky shit.