Paradox Studio Thread

[God of Nothing]

I didn't intend to do an AAR or anything like that, but probably one of the most interesting turn of events happened. I finally got a really bad inheritance. Adopting feudalism early, consolidating all power, and reigning over an empire of savages didn't exactly leave my successor in any good position. Plus, he was trash. I started arresting faction members that wanted to secede from the empire and replace me. In the war against one of the Poles, the luckiest unlucky thing happened: he got turned into a vegetable. And my heir and current far superior character was made regent. A father asked his son to kill him and his son obliged. Then I began kicking all of my vassals asses to remind them who was in charge.

god i love ck2

 

[Snekposter]

where frozen lakes were a thing

Watch out for artillery strikes on any troops that cross...

 

[Lobster Cult High Priest]

What I find to be really cool is that in heavy winters mountain provinces will become untraversable, will make playing mountainous countries way more interesting and defendable.

Some more interesting stuff that Johan mentioned in the replies:
If a navy is out in a sea tile that gets frozen, it will be stuck there and armies will be able to capture it (You better watch out with blockading shit lol)
An army can die by being on a frozen tile that melts
Sea tiles being frozen can reduce control and slow down trade by making it require longer routes

Franklin Bros it's going to be Kino.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

What I find to be really cool is that in heavy winters mountain provinces will become untraversable, will make playing mountainous countries way more interesting and defendable.

Some more interesting stuff that Johan mentioned in the replies:
If a navy is out in a sea tile that gets frozen, it will be stuck there and armies will be able to capture it (You better watch out with blockading shit lol)
An army can die by being on a frozen tile that melts
Sea tiles being frozen can reduce control and slow down trade by making it require longer routes

This sounds like stuff that sounds good on paper, will be micro Hell and the AI will have no idea what to do with it.

I want to know if there's going to be any GREAT LAKES NAVIES
I WANT GREAT LAKES NAVIES REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

[Super Hans v2]

This sounds like stuff that sounds good on paper, will be micro Hell and the AI will have no idea what to do with it.

The AI already gets to cheat by not having to deal with fog of war and other horseshit. Any way they get debuffed is good in my book. Especially if it makes plopping coastal forts in every Denmark province a good defense strategy.

 

[The Count of Monte Cristo]

Tribal in CK2+ is such a pain.

Ugh, this really makes me want to get back into CK2, and learn CK2+. I haven't played seriously in a few years

 

[God of Nothing]

Ugh, this really makes me want to get back into CK2, and learn CK2+. I haven't played seriously in a few years

It's just CK2 with a few extra mechanics to make things more interesting. The only challenging part is blobbing now because they further limited the amount of vassals you could have. Makes for more interesting situations.

I've basically won at this point. All that's left is to imperialize, which is really hard to do coming out of tribal because every vassal is tribal. Been sitting on Absolute Crown Authority for a few rulers now.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Ugh, this really makes me want to get back into CK2, and learn CK2+. I haven't played seriously in a few years

It's not that steep a learning curve, it's vanilla plus. Most of the regional strategies in the base game still apply, though Diplomacy is much more useful, especially lategame.

 

[The Count of Monte Cristo]

It's not that steep a learning curve, it's vanilla plus. Most of the regional strategies in the base game still apply, though Diplomacy is much more useful, especially lategame.

I'll probably give it a shot this weekend, see what trouble I can get into. Any recommended characters/countries I should try to start with?

 

[Happy Camper]

Watch out for artillery strikes on any troops that cross...

Some of my happiest moments in gaming have been when an enemy APC is crossing a frozen river and I fling a shell at them and see the whole crew sink to a watery grave.

I'll probably give it a shot this weekend, see what trouble I can get into. Any recommended characters/countries I should try to start with?

At least when I played it more actively (a long-ass time ago tbf) Ireland was the newbie-friendly spot on the map for learning the basics without too much pressure. Bit in general some place where you aren't likely to be stomped by a big empire is a decent place and I'd recommend picking a smaller place to start with as well so that you don't get overwhelmed with all the things that say the Emperor of the HRE would have to keep up with. Good luck!

 

[TheArtilleryman]

I had no idea about CK2s "Too many duchies" opinion penalty for a little while. I'm pretty sure it directly caused at least 2 of my losses.

I got CK3 pretty cheap but I don't even want to move on from CK2 yet, at least not until I finally unite the British Isles under the Empire of Éire. I've managed to acquire Iceland, Egypt, Norway, most of Africa and Jurusalem but still no England, the God damn Germans have it and the majority of mainland Europe on lockdown.

Fucking love this game.

Anyway I'm very new to Paradox and was mostly oblivious to all their games until acquiring CK2 and it's DLC a couple of months ago. I briefly tried CK3 and I'm kind of excited to check out the new features eventually but holy fuck I hate the new UI. It's so soulless and generic UBISOFT tier slop.

What can I expect jumping from 2 to 3?

 

[Computer God Autism]

I'll probably give it a shot this weekend, see what trouble I can get into. Any recommended characters/countries I should try to start with?

For the basic 1066 start:
Werner of Basel - establish the Habsburg dominance. I had a lot of fun working my way to the Duchy of Transjura then using it as a springboard to get Austria. The HREmperorship was just a vehicle for me to build baronies everywhere and hand them to branch families.

Philippe Capet - you start as a child king of France which presents a lot of challenges since you have powerful vassals that won't immediately respect you, but it also comes with the advantage of being able to better shape your character (and so the dynasty) to your liking. Once you get over the initial difficulty curve and solidify a royal demesne it's easy mode.

Matilda of Tuscany - classic woman start, you're 20 and the most eligible bachelorette in Italy. Because of this there's a vast amount of ways you can play her differently; make a bid for the HRE, consolidate Lombardy, try to throw out the HRE, prioritize puppeting the Papacy, etc.

Alexios Komnenos - you're not the Emperor yet, your the 10 year old Doux of Phalagonia, but you start with a solid demense and a strong character. It's a good test of knowing how to work within an Imperial Administration.

Alp Arslan - probably the easiest Muslim start in 1066, very easy to snowball with a strong military character and a vast dynasty.

 

[The Count of Monte Cristo]

Philippe Capet - you start as a child king of France which presents a lot of challenges since you have powerful vassals that won't immediately respect you, but it also comes with the advantage of being able to better shape your character (and so the dynasty) to your liking. Once you get over the initial difficulty curve and solidify a royal demesne it's easy mode.

Here's how my game starting as that little niglet is going

Spoiler: Austism

Forgot to take screenshots before this, but up to this point I was just dealing with internal strife in france, waiting for the crusades to happen, England did get conquered by William the Conquerer, I ended up taking back normandy after a few years, didnt really do much until pope called for a Crusade in Egypt, I cheesed the crusade and won Egypt for the character in the pic. Eventually the ruler I had been playing in France died so I got the kingdom, I was running out of Vassal Limit so I ended up forming an Empire, decided to conquer Jerusalem which was ruled by the Ex-King of Egypt, the Shia Caliph

Somehow I was able to declare war on the pope to subjugate them

Ended up becoming my rival and excommunicated me during the war, after I won I threw him in the oubliette and waited for him to die so I could get the next pope to lift my excommunication

At some point during the last decade or two in game I had married one of my siblings to an Heiress of Croatia, they somehow fucked their line so bad I inherited the kingdom of Croatia (btw I didnt actually for the empire of the outremer I just named it that cause Egyptian Empire looked dumb as fuck on the map that controls France and Croatia)

This isnt really important but I noticed there were two Abyssinias in my game, no clue why

Crusade for Britannia turned into a Crusade for Lithuania which I absolutely curb stomped them and put my second daughter on the throne.

Anyways after that crusade I have 10K gold and almost a 100K man army.
First time actually doing a CK2+ run honestly enjoy it a bit more than vanilla, especially how factions are handled, I noticed starting out you cant just cheese Jewish loans and kicking Jews out of your kingdom/empire only noticed the Jewish loan decision after I got Egypt, no idea when it popped up though. I'll probably continue this run conquering all of Northern Africa and then Spain. There is a "Claim the Western Roman Empire" which I do plan on doing once I figure out how to do that, and also Mending the Schizm after I get Antioch and Constantinople under my belt.

One thing that sucks though is since I have such a large army, I cannot do a Grand Conquest against the HRE, nor the Seljuks, somehow the Seljuks have a 4K army, and HRE 40K, so I either just have to declare war and cheese my way into winning wars against huge Defensive Pacts using holy wars, or wait a million years for claims to be fabricated against the HRE or any other Christian nation. Still fun though.

 

[God of Nothing]

Here's how my game starting as that little niglet is going

>king of france and egypt
this is so cursed
classic ck2 though
i somehow inherited Aquitaine while being in russia from a member of my dynasty that took it over

 

[The Count of Monte Cristo]

>king of france and egypt
this is so cursed
classic ck2 though

Yeah I gave France to some child duke, who I became the guardian of and eventual friend of, and did roughly the same for Croatia.
Also I think I forgot to mention in my original post. Somehow Sicily became independent from the Byzantines, and they let me just vassalize them for some reason, possibly due to them being Normans and its the same culture group? No idea.

 

[God of Nothing]

Yeah I gave France to some child duke, who I became the guardian of and eventual friend of, and did roughly the same for Croatia.
Also I think I forgot to mention in my original post. Somehow Sicily became independent from the Byzantines, and they let me just vassalize them for some reason, possibly due to them being Normans and its the same culture group? No idea.

CK2+ adds a new vassalize CB if there's a bordering realm of the same religion but it's not that big so you can "protect" them. I think you can turn it off if you don't like being able to conquer things willy nilly. This lets foreign realms sharing the same religion able to form kingdoms and expand easier, making it so you're not the only competition in the continent though.

The Bulgarian Empire to my south was a quintessential buffer state that utterly fucked the Byzantines from ever threatening me. Downside is now that I've been expanding into Western Europe, they have a lot of territories that would make my borders look less horrid I have to wage war against them piecemeal for.

 

[The Count of Monte Cristo]

CK2+ adds a new vassalize CB if there's a bordering realm of the same religion but it's not that big so you can "protect" them. I think you can turn it off if you don't like being able to conquer things willy nilly. This lets foreign realms sharing the same religion able to form kingdoms and expand easier, making it so you're not the only competition in the continent though.

Meh that's why I enable Defensive Pacts to not be able to expand so much to be a grindfest, though if youre in the late game it basically means nothing anyway.

though if youre in the late game it basically means nothing anyway.

Prob should expand on this a bit and I hope someone can answer this, I remember doing a Roman Empire run, eventually I had pretty much half of the Mediterranean under my control, which included pretty much all the duchies needed to reform the Roman Empire. I had pretty much all of Europe besides the HRE in a defensive pact against me, and yet I would go to war against some kingdom or whatever, barely take anything over with maybe 10% to 20% warscore in my favor, and they would accept peace with me as the winner, even though half of my country would be under siege from the defensive pact. Has anyone ran into this before?

 

[Computer God Autism]

>king of france and egypt
this is so cursed
classic ck2 though
i somehow inherited Aquitaine while being in russia from a member of my dynasty that took it over

It's just the dream of Louis the Saint being realized. Dieu lo Vult.

Going for Egypt is generally the best strategy as a Crusader if Jerusalem isn't on the table too - I did it in my Capet run. Easy tradepost access, more provinces to seize, and it's generally easy to find some Copts you can promote into local landholders to make managing the conquered territory easier initially.

 

[God of Nothing]

this is the most ridiculous unintentional marriage strat i have ever achieved

 

[The Count of Monte Cristo]

this is the most ridiculous unintentional marriage strat i have ever achieved

What in the hell are those borders

Somehow the pope in my game was married and had kids at some point.