Paradox Games

So, getting back to EUIV, and I think I may have bit off a little too much (In my defense, Cleves and Brunswick were totally asking for it), since it's not even 1490 and I've managed to get pretty the entire HRE (and a few non-HRE Italian minors and Brittany and England) save for the big four (Austria, Bohemia, Brandenburg, and Bavaria, who are busy fighting other wars, which keeps them from joining). Unfortunately for the coalition, I'm custom nation that's basically the Netherlands if they also had beefy enough NIs to laugh at a Japan-Prussia hybrid and followed Norse Paganism (Dutch Republic stronk, Norse gods stronk, remove Papist monarch from premises), and France is my ally.

My goals? Sink/steal their ships, see their armies driven before me, shatter England, and use any spare warscore to feed France, as a strong France means a strong ally, which increases my (functional) strength without incurring more Aggressive Expansion. And whenever France's sudden, but inevitable betrayal comes about? Well, I'll deal with that when it becomes an issue. Hopefully, I'll have formed a cultural union first.

Okay, only have two provinces left to take in all of the British Isles, not counting the Orkneys. I've also conquered my first Continental possession in Leon, and had my first civil war (which was atypical considering I think I'd gone through two kings without one). I also disbanded my retinues because they were taking up too much money so now I'm making money again (like 10 a month). As soon as I create Pictland and conquer the last three provinces in the north I'll create Britannia then begin taking the Continent in earnest.

EDIT: Created Pictland (now Scotland) and a number of duchies. I'm going to create Britannia when I get enough money and rely on the new Duke of Moray to take the remaining land. I'll most likely go for the Orkneys too. I've also got my chancellor fabricating a claim on one of the other Breton provinces.

edited 11th Aug '15 1:02:11 PM by theLibrarian

Yep. Crisis of the Confederation is highly recommended!

Maybe I should try it out then, if it's highly recommended.

Well, that's a new one - in 1463 or so, Castile and Aragon entered a personal union... under Aragon. Austria's contesting, but I don't think Habsblob can stop Aragon + Castile + Naples + whatever allies they have.

Last night, in the year 1078, after three centuries of war, diplomacy, civil wars, and hardship, my goal was finally achieved. The Empire of Britannia is established. Sans one province at the very tip of Scotland and the Orkney Isles themselves, all of Britain is under our thrall, along with two provinces in Brittany that I will soon make mine as well. As soon as I get the opportunity to do so, as well, I will make a crusade for Asturias and begin reconquering Spain in the name of Christendom and Britannia itself.

I also have a very good king for it xD Through a very good mentor in the form of the Duke of Lothian, he's attractive, honest, brave, just, and gregarious. His only flaw is that he's cynical xD

That's not necessarily a flaw if he doesn't overdo it. Being wary of the weaknesses in your own plans beats the Hell out of thinking you don't have any.

Makes the zealous peeps mad, though.

Hopefully there aren't too many of them in high places. Besides, there are ways to overcome that. If those zealous peeps have claims on lands you want, just push the claim and get more land for the person. That's how I took Northumbria in my current campaign.

Feh, that's just kicking the problem forward a few years.

About twenty years, isn't it? And that depends on the land being claimed. If it's not co-religious soil, they could wind up losing it to a revolt anyway. Then they're back to square one and you STILL look like a bed of roses to them. And within twenty years, if you play your cards right, you could have the cash or troops on hand to put them down, imprison them, and take some of their land anyway.

Or, if you're lucky, they can produce an heir you can educate. But if they educated their own heir, they'll probably be zealous, too, and will not be even slightly grateful.

Ideally, your whole realm should be either entirely zealous or entirely cynical.

Zealous vassals aren't an issue for Cynical rulers unless it's compounded upon other bad traits or claims. -10 is nothing on it's own most of the time.

Now everyone being Zealous is great for the +30 bonus, unless you plan to convert the realm.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Zealous is also useful as a general trait, so there's that, too.

Second coalition war and now Austria doesn't have a gold mine, Bohemia doesn't have Silesia, and a few other coalition losses. Round 3 will mean Austria losing Styria.

At their peak, despite my best efforts to get them chillax, the coalition contained almost all of the HRE (and England, who is my rival). I suspect I shall fight them several times more before getting my cultural union. Though I do appreciate them helping me gain France's trust.

So since the latest patch broke their dragon mechanics, the Game Of Thrones mod probably won't be updated for a few months, when the next patch comes out.

Maybe I just should try and get into After the End, it seems well supported. At least it might get me my conversion mod fix until Elder Kings finally gets it's update.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

I like it, but beware of a bug where nomads settling and forming empires can cause CTD, possibly due to ATE using a mostly empty de jure empire map. If you're in position, I'd advise ganking as many of the nomads as you can.

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Le sigh, Ottomans, why you so Ottoderp? You guys are supposed to be a threatening blob, not an ineffectual medium power that barely even tries to take land. 'sides, it's not like Habsblob will stop them, seeing as much of the HRE is too busy being perma-butthurt at me (to be fair, by allying France and Sweden, I've established a very large, very powerful anti-Habsburg bloc, and I did eat a fair number of fellow HRE princes before any of my AE Impact Reduction could kick in).

Also, I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but Castile managed to invert their previous situation and get the Iberian Wedding to put Aragon under them.

edited 13th Aug '15 1:14:35 PM by Balmung

It's not really empty, empire-wise. There's like five or six different ones.

I said mostly empty. There are far more non-empire provinces (most of the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, most of Mexico and Central America, the Southwest between Texas and California, the Northeast, western Canada, Utah, and Florida) than empire provinces (the Deep South, the Caribbean, a part of Mexico, Texas + a bit more, Calfornia + a bit more, eastern Canada, and the Midwestern Great Lakes states), and this includes all of the land that the nomads are in.

edited 13th Aug '15 1:26:29 PM by Balmung

Yeah, to be honest I think New England could also use an Empire.

I feel the need to make at least this point about how comparatively empty After The End's de jure map is (it used to rely mostly on titular cultural empires, but stopped adding them because we now have custom empires): at only a little above the ATE county count, the vanilla map has 18 de jure empires (not counting Germania as distinct from the HRE or the Roman Empire as distinct from the Byzantine Empire or India as distinct from its component empires). ATE should easily be good for 12 to 15 empires, even if it have dinky empires like Italia and Mali.

Lakotah + Platte + Iowa or so could be something like e_great_plains, as an example.

Okay, the final de jure province of Britannia is now mine. Germany has been ripped apart in a civil war (I'm thinking of taking advantage of that to smash the German territory around Brittany to take it for my own) and right now I'm just waiting to get the chance to crusade for Asturias. I can Holy War for a lot of places in Spain but that barely nets me any land.

In CKII, is there any particular advantage to capturing and annexing an enemy's capital - besides the ability to take the royal family and such captive, of course. Does it turn vassals against their ruler for looking weak or somesuch?

I'm Umayyad and slowly but surely eating up Francia (and Britan, at times when Francia has a truce), and I'm trying to decide my next move. I can't invade (which sucks, because I'm trying to wipe them out as much as possible before the Crusades become available), so I've got options for a few Holy Wars - which is always a toss up, since I only have my rough estimates of various duchy's value. I do, however, have a straight shot for the duchy their capital is in, even though the war itself would give me less provinces.

edited 16th Aug '15 2:13:56 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I think it might be worth a little extra warscore.

And the primary liege's holdings are usually easier to siege because half the troops are probably in the field.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.