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    Home Unlabelled Crusader Kings Anyone know why this 'Exit game' button is labeled 'Open Dynasty Tree'?

    Crusader Kings Anyone know why this 'Exit game' button is labeled 'Open Dynasty Tree'?

    January 14, 2021

    Crusader Kings Anyone know why this 'Exit game' button is labeled 'Open Dynasty Tree'?

    Anyone know why this 'Exit game' button is labeled 'Open Dynasty Tree'?

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 06:32 AM PST

    What an unusual name...

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 03:53 AM PST

    Base 6 learning ruler somehow turned out to have the best stat I've seen.

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 02:00 AM PST

    When the AI is looking for a spouse for their young heirs

    Posted: 13 Jan 2021 01:27 PM PST

    Things got out of hand...

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 05:47 AM PST

    ♪ China is whole again...then it broke again ♪

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 10:13 AM PST

    Rejoice.

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 08:44 AM PST

    If you three are just gonna fight over the Holy Land, I'll have to confiscate it!

    Posted: 13 Jan 2021 12:27 PM PST

    Best places to build tall

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 04:15 AM PST

    Alright guys, I've recently fallen back in love with building tall and I wanna share my favourite places to build tall, why they're good for building tall and how I do it. Disclaimer: I often use ruler designer to cheese it as much as possible, while not making stupid broken characters. 400-600 points is my normal range

    Lets start with the classic: Kingdom of Bohemia, 1066

    WHY: Ahh Bohemia, what's not to love here. Two duchy kingdom in an empire that's not likely to have its neighbours on your side trying to take its territory. 3x 6 slot counties in the Duchy of Bohemia, 7 farmland baronies, a mine, hemmed in by mountains and your culture is entirely in your territory and your territory is entirely your culture. The only thing it's missing is a holy site, but oh well, we can't have it all.

    HOW: You barely have to touch this one at all, it practically builds itself tall without needing ruler designer at all. The first thing I do when playing Vratislav is to get rid of House Seniority, up the Crown Authority and host a feast to get the rest of your Prestige and opinion. After that you want to take Olomouc for the second Duchy slot, then just kick back and build up. You can take Zatec, Litomerice and Znojmo for the last of the castles with farmland if you want, but I don't find it terribly necessary unless you have a ruler with a shit-tonne of stewardship and you have spare holding slots unfilled. The hardest part is not getting yourself elected Emperor, which is going to happen eventually because you hold an Elector-Prince title. Worst case scenario there is that you get a bunch of hooks on the other electors and force them to vote for someone else for when that character dies and you only hold the HRE for a generation.

    Oh and a side note: Bohemia is still good in 876, but not nearly as broken as 1066. First, the kingdom is only one duchy, which you can expand to contain the Duchy of Moravia as well, but your pagan faith makes all the big boys nearby hostile and all (I think) of your vassals are tribal, so it's an uphill battle, but the payoff is decent once you've done it.

    ​

    Next lets go with the one I think is actually the most powerful: Kingdom of Tamilakam (876) or Chola (1066)

    WHY: Alright, this one is super over loaded it's kind of insane. Between the two main duchies (Pandya and Chola Nadu) you have a 7 slot county with 5 slots being farmland and 2 jungle (sweet, sweet Elephantries), another 3 farmland counties, a Unique Holy Building slot that works for all Eastern Religions, a minimum of 18 development in 876 or 25 in 1066 and it's mostly along the coastline so you can get majority of your baronies with ports, which cranks your development up even more. On top of that if you go Hindu or Jain there's some Holy Sites in your territory as well, though the Hindu one is in the Duchy of Tondai Nadu, but it's not hard to add to your collection, especially if you're taking the whole kingdom and have some vassals under you. The Tamil culture is also entirely within your borders, but not all of your territory is Tamil.

    HOW: This one has a few different ways to do it, depending on which start date you want to start in and which religion you want to go with. The easiest option, in my opinion, 1066 and Hindu. The starting ruler is perfectly usable, no need to cheese the ruler designer. You'll start at war with Rohana, but if you lose it's no big deal, but you might have to deal with a belligerent neighbour if you don't try to wear them down a bit before losing. Next, just grant your northern vassal independence, most of their territory isn't De Jure yours and it'll leave you with the Hindu holy site. Next you wanna get at least Madurai off your vassal, but preferably all of Pandya. Getting all of Pandya is more important if you want to go Jain, because it contains the Jain Holy Site. After that it's just a cast of building up and fending off your neighbours, since you're much less protected than Bohemia. As for 876, you can start as either Pandya or Chola and just take the other's territory. This can take a little while because you're not hostile religiously and need to wait for claims and truces, but it doesn't take long at all to get the important counties. Pandya can do it slightly faster because they have one more territory than Chola. Once you've finished combining them, just add one more county and you can make the Kingdom. I like adding Chera because it means you have one less border to worry about.

    ​

    Next, my favourite fixer-uper: Kingdom of Mali or Duchy of Manding

    WHY: This one is super overloaded with potential, but takes the most work to get going. The main attraction for this one is the mines. 3 of the best mines in the game, two in the same duchy and one in the duchy next door (Bambuk). On top of that there's some nice floodplains and a holy site, though you can't use it with the mine it does make reforming the faith easier.

    HOW: Alright, so there are a number of factors which change how you want to do this. Do you want to being independent or just chill as a vassal? Do you want to start in 876 or 1066? Do you want to cheese the Ruler Designer or start with a normal character? Do you want to get to feudal ASAP or are you okay with being tribal for a while? I'll try to be as brief as I can running through these, but some take a bit more explanation than others.

    • 876, independent, normal (you're gunna have to be okay with being tribal for a while 'cus the only way to get feudal faster is by cheesing Ruler Designer): First things first, swear fealty to Ghana. They should give the rest of Manding's De Jure territory to you in vassal form, which is nice. Next, make some claims on Bambuk and take their territory too for that 3rd mine. Meanwhile, raid as much as you can to get the money for the mines. Once you have all 3, you should be raking in the cash, which means you can hire heaps of mercs and grabbing the rest of Mali's De Jure territory should be a breeze. Also make sure to get Jenne, because it has a unique holy building which you can use if you decide to convert to Islam or as a third holy site if you want to reform. Once you've got enough to form the Kingdom, start an independence faction and sit back, holding on to your territory and wait for the conditions to switch to feudal.
    • 876, independent, cheese: This is more or less the same as above, except I recommend making an Italian culture character and you can choose an already reformed faith but that one is less important since it's so easy to reform anyway. Italian is my go to cheese strat for skipping to Feudal because Italian has a really high average development, a high amount of base innovations and is rarely actually controlled by people with the Italian culture, so you can become culture head by just converting two of your territories after a while.
    • 876, vassal: Same as the above two, except you don't have to worry about the independence faction. Just chill out as a vassal and try to get on that council.
    • 1066, independent, normal: Manding starts Islamic, but still tribal, so the easiest way is to swear fealty to Ghana and immediately change your feudal contract to give yourself title revocation immunity and then continue as normal with the 876 starts.
    • 1066, independent, cheese: Slower than above to get to feudal/clan but does mean you don't have to swear fealty, just make a character with a culture that already has all the tribal innovations, just have to wait on getting max tribal authority. Eventually you will have to go to war with Ghana anyway, if you want that third mine.
    • 1066, vassal: Again, same as independent just don't start independence claim. Don't have to cheese anything to rush it, it's already a very fast rush to feudal. You can choose a reformed religion you like more than Ash'ari if you want, though.

    ​

    Finally, lets go with one I only just discovered and is the inspiration for this post: Duchy of Ferghana (aka Alexandria Eschate)

    WHY: Alright, so I have a particular soft spot for the history of Bactria, I can and have ranted about why these guys are so interesting from a historical perspective, but I'm just gunna skip over most of that and just say that Alexandria Eschate, also known as Alexandria the Furthest, has a very strong Duchy for playing tall. 2x 7 slot counties, with 5 slots being farmland and a bunch of plains, but also a bunch of mountains around the edges which makes it nice and safe. Get good garrisons in castles on mountain or hill slots and it's going to be a real pain to take the territory off you. Decent development for the area too, but the main strength are those insane barony counts. There's also a duchy next door with a 6 slot county for your second duchy slot, but the focus is definitely Ferghana. The main downsides are the lack of special buildings and the inability to control your cultural innovations, unless you cheese the ruler designer.

    HOW: So this is going to vary wildly depending on if you start 876 or 1066 because a decently sized kingdom controls it in 876, so you have to work harder to get in position. 1066 is pretty straight forward though because a count controls the two good counties you want and one smaller one, so you can just start as them and either go normally or cheese the ruler designer if you want to have control of your culture or be feudal rather than clan. 876 on the other hand, you want to be a vassal of the Samanid and they should give all the counties in Ferghana to people because they start waaaay over their holdings cap. Just get some claims and take it over. If you are going to cheese the ruler designer and really want a holy site, I recommend going Manichean because it's the closest one and has a decent level of development. Only problem is that it's the capital of the Samanid in 876, so you will have to wait for it to switch hands before you can take it. Also, I don't recommend playing this one independent, at least until you've really built up a defensible position.

    ​

    ​

    Lastly, some brief honourable mentions:

    • Brittany: Easier in 1066 'cus you can just swear fealty to France and if you decide to go Waldensianist or Lollardy you can get a bunch of cheap as fuck churches that can develop super quickly.
    • Essex + Kent: If you want to go Waldensianist or Lollardy, this is the better choice. Middle Seaxe is a super strong county and lay clergy for Canterbury is so fuckin' good. Definitely be a vassal for this one though because you will get Holy War'd the fuck out of you if you don't.
    • Cordoba + Granada or Toledo... Or just Andalusia in general: High development, holy sites, unique buildings, farmlands, it's got it all, just prepare for a reconquista or two. Fun with Priscillianist, because you get two holy sites for the price of one!
    • Sardinia: Got a mine and only two baronies aren't on the coast. Can be harder with the Muslims to the south, or if you are Muslim, the Christians to the north. There are a few ways to get around it though, so not so bad.
    • Kiev: I really want to get Kiev to work well, it's got a bunch of things on paper that would make it strong, but I just find it really hard to get working properly. The 876 start means that you have to get past tribal and cheesing it can speed it up, but reformation requirement can be a pain because of how far apart the holy sites are. The best strat I've had is to swear fealty to the Bulgarians once you reform the slavic faith, but you have to get lucky for them to still be cohesive and next door to the southern holy site when you finally reform. If you swear fealty too early you will just get your titles revoked for being a hostile faith. Converting to Orthodoxy kind of defeats the fun because it's the holy site on top of the terrain/barony count that makes it so good for building tall. Also, really hard to defend sometimes with the Khazars and the Magyar right next door. 1066 it's too late, they are already Ruthenia and the good duchy is the ruler's core titles.
    • There are some other good ones in India, specifically along the Ganges like Maghada with farmlands, a university and a holy site, or Delhi and Paramara with the farmlands, holy sites and special buildings, but where they tend to fall apart is the extremely low barony counts. Most of duchies will have one county with 4 or 5 baronies, but most of them only have 3. This is fine with larger empires and having them as vassals or just having your capital in the 4 or 5 slot + holy site or special building, but for concentrating in one or two duchies and building tall it's really not very strong.
    • One other exception in the area aside from Chola though, is Pagan. Quite a few 4+ counties, many farmlands, many jungles and two holy sites for Ari Buddhism, plus a nice and defensible border to the rest of the Bengal Empire.
    • Baghdad and Delta are some other good ones too, floodplains + high development and lots of nearby holy sites make for a bunch of options for culture/religion combos
    • Denmark can be good, but to take advantage of the holy site means either setting yourself up for holy wars from the Christians or dealing with the tribal start and neighbours for 1066 and 876 starts, respectively
    • Valois has potential, but is hamstrung by being the capital of West Francia/France, so keeping it while not being the leader of the kingdom can be tricky.
    • Burgundy has a lot of potential too, especially the 1066 start under the HRE.
    • Italy and Germany have a bunch of nice counties, but I find the area is always too much of a shitfight to take advantage of, too unstable. Latium especially is hard to take advantage of because to take it you already need to be well established and once you do take it, you are just inviting crusades against yourself or your liege is just going to give Rome back to the papacy. Not worth the hassle when building tall, but great for establishing a strong capital duchy once you're already strong when building wide
    • Zahumlje has the biggest barony count of any county in the game and is a real bitch to take once you have it full of castles because it's almost entirely mountains, but fails terribly at economy... because it's almost entirely mountains.

    ​

    Now that I've put forward my favourite places to build tall, what are yours? I'm sure I've missed some and I'm keen to see what people have to say about the spots I've mentioned or any I've haven't

    EDIT: I'm talking about CK3 here, just for clarity

    submitted by /u/ZiggyB
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    My goodness, this is horrible news! Who would do such a thing?

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 10:11 AM PST

    R2D2's traits in CK2

    Posted: 13 Jan 2021 09:46 PM PST

    Please allow cadet house to form their own dynasty!

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 11:02 AM PST

    I find it ridiculous that by the end of the game i end up with more than 30 cadet houses and thousand of dynasty members, and it is laughable for the dynasty head to retain control over cadet houses that are hundred years removed from the main line or simply to powerful. The house that mostly suffers from this is the House of Capet, yes, they originate from the Robertine dynasty but by 1066 you could consider them their own independent house and not just some cadet, the worst thing is when you form a Capet cadet and the name becomes Robertine-whatever, that just makes no sense, why would a Capet name their house after the extinct Robertinians (cadet names need improvement in general as their name are mostly composite and ugly when we have some good example irl like the Houses of York,Lancaster,Valois,Orleans,Bourbon. More of that less of Robertine-beaumont type names) A house that has reached a considerable level of prestige should be able to split from the main line, and bring the cadet houses that spawned from their line with them as well into a new dynasty.

    submitted by /u/JonSlow1
    [link] [comments]

    Can we get the possibilty to get our dynasty tree generated in an excel (or similar) file? Because our dynasties tend to become huge in the late to mid game and the "Show dynasty" button becomes an alt+F4 Hotkey

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 08:36 AM PST

    Can we get the possibilty to get our dynasty tree generated in an excel (or similar) file? Because our dynasties tend to become huge in the late to mid game and the "Show dynasty" button becomes an alt+F4 Hotkey

    This is especially a tad annoying when you are trying to favour one specific house or simply a line of your dynasty

    submitted by /u/Predator_Hicks
    [link] [comments]

    Any love for poor Hakon of Namsborg, Haesteinn's underpowered alternative?

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 01:22 AM PST

    Giving clans more land does not decrease Clan Land Demand?

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 08:21 AM PST

    I just started playing as a nomad for the first time. I've done a bit of research about how playing as a nomad works and I felt like I knew everything I needed to. However, after finishing that war you start with when you play as the Monghol Empire in the Age of the Mongols timemark my Clan Land Demand count was at 4. So I gave one county to a clan that had no land and it went down to 3. However, after giving him about 5 more counties the counter still is at 3. Does anyone know what I'm missing here?

    The only thing I could come up with is that the other counties I gave him weren't nomadic? And if that is the issue, how do I make counties nomadic before handing them out?

    submitted by /u/QuintennB
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    Mare Nostrum

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 11:25 AM PST

    [CK3] When I capture an enemy capital, and the leader is in said capital, what determines if I capture that leader and end the war automatically or not? It seems to be random.

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 07:27 AM PST

    My Semi-Historical Ironman Kingdom of Sicily, with King Roger II

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 08:55 AM PST

    What the heck I missing?

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 04:05 AM PST

    Playing Tall Guide - Tips, Tricks, and Strategies for Playing Tall in a Duchy or (small) Kingdom in CK3, or How to Conquer the World with 8 Counties

    Posted: 13 Jan 2021 06:17 PM PST

    This is a guide and playthrough for playing tall in Crusader Kings 1.2.2. It identifies some useful strategies and goals for playing Tall, as well as what I think is the most fun tall playthrough (in my opinion, super subjective). I like text heavy guides that you can follow along as you play and read over more than once.. so.. Be warned.

    Playing Tall means, to me, playing one or two duchies, or one small kingdom, and maximizing your own personal domain within it. If my domain limit allows me to, I will have almost no county-level vassals, and sometimes even hold baronies within my counties. Obviously this usually means a large domain, but without vassals you can easily sit +1-3 over your domain limit without a problem.

    It does not mean you do nothing!

    Yes, you spend a lot of money on buildings, and you will not be launching huge foreign wars to build an Empire, but you will still be going to war. Playing tall gives you the stability to really delve into your neighbours politics, and the wars you wage will have very different goals than the normal expansion-based CK3 game.

    Instead, playing tall lets you cut out vassal management (for the most part), focus your wars to specific goals, and reorients your game to dynasty/succession management rather than vassal wars.

    Candidates for Playing Tall

    Any duchy can be played tall! It's just a matter of difficulty, but any player that focuses on building up their duchy (even without worrying about their culture development) will come out better than the AI. This list considers easier duchies, but anywhere you think there is a good story to uncover is a good place to play tall.

    Here are a few factors you should consider, though sometimes just one of these is enough to be a fun playthrough:

    • Small cultural footprint. The smaller your culture is, the easier it is to control all counties with your culture and increase the average development in each of those counties. This will increase your cultural fascination progress. It also feels good to lead your people.
    • Baronies: What baronies do your counties have? Are there farmlands (provide more wealth)? Do they have a lot of baronies (can build multiple cities/temples/castles)? A county with two baronies is a very different experience then one with say, 6 baronies.
    • Defensible. Is it an island, or surrounded by mountains or rivers? Other vassals or other realms will come for you, and you need to be ready.
    • Religion: Less important, but if you are a heathen Christian next to the Abbasids, you are going to have a bad time.
    • Can it form a Kingdom? This probably isn't necessary, but it feels good to be King.

    There is a lot of "best duchies" out there for playing tall, you can find them easily enough by searching this sub or the main Paradox forums. Best duchy is entirely subjective (you will see my pick below), but here are some contenders. These are duchies with lots of counties, or highly defensible, or very rich, or all three:

    • Holland: Defended by rivers, enemies often have to land from ocean making them vulnerable or cut across rivers to attack you. Easily can form Kingdom of Frisia. Small, focused culture (Dutch) for development. Northwestern Europe.
    • Britanny: The Duchy is also a kingdom, backed up against the sea with an easy ally (West Francia). Small, focused culture (Breton) for better development.
    • Bohemia: Another easy kingdom with massive amounts of baronies, surrounded by mountains (and also enemies). Small focused culture (Czech). There is a mine in Caslav. Right next to Germany.
    • Bosnia : Basically one big mountain, so very defensible. Small focused culture, and you can convert to Krstjani Christianity, with unique Christian holy sites. One of the bigger duchies in the game, but surrounded by enemies (especially if you convert).
    • Sardinia & Corsica: Island, easy Kingdom, with a gold mine on the island (south western Bishopric of Iglesias). Small focused culture (sardinian). West of Italy.
    • Sicily: Island, less easy kingdom/culture (sicilian) spread out, but still worthy contender. Island southern tip of Italy.
    • Normandy: Defended by rivers, back up against the sea, good counties. Coast of France. If you create the Norman (Norse/French) culture, you have a good cultural basis.
    • West Franconia: Lots of counties, not so great on culture/kingdom front. Right in the middle of Germany.
    • Sri Lanka: Defensible island, unique culture with a special building in Pihiti (has to be built) This is an island off the southeastern coast of India.
    • Ferghana: Very defensible, good baronies, less focused culture/Kingdom claim. Tribal/Clan starts. This is part of the Samanid in 867 starts, eastern corner up against the mountains (hard to find it if you don't know the area)
    • Manding/Bambuk: Gold, gold, gold. Easy to form Kingdom of Mali, but hard to reform religion however and you're tribal. Three goldmines nearby. Gold gold gold. This is western Africa. Gold.

    There are other likely candidates, but these are some of the most popular. Here's a map of special buildings if you want to focus one of those. However if you really want to play tall, recommend going Feudal over tribal or clan, so that you can jumpstart your development / tech progress. Like I said above though - go tall where ever you want, its a mindset, not a rule.

    How to Play Tall

    This list is a mix of things that are essential to playing tall as well as suggestions of goals for playing tall. Please note that I am not a min-maxer, so these are definitely not optimized. Remember that expansion beyond the duchies you control is not ideal! You don't want to have to deal with vassals or claims that might start wars against you. You want to focus your economic wealth only into those counties that you control, and will control for the generations that follow.

    Stewardship points are absolutely essential to a tall build, and every ruler should probably at least dip into this. You will need all the points you can get from traits and lifestyle. It's important because you are trying to personally control a very large domain. I have found usually you will max out 6-8 domains early game and that quickly goes up to 10-12 within a couple centuries or so of tech development.

    • Education Trait: Aim for Midas Touched, with +8 stewardship. Here's a nifty calculator that I think still works so you can make sure you assign the best Educator to your children.
    • Stewardship Lifestyle: Honestly there's a lot of stinkers in these trees, but you want the stewardship and domain limit bonuses. I go for wealth focus (+10% monthly income) as you will need that. I usually go down both Avaricious and Architect trees. It's worth getting all of them, but I usually beeline for Extort Subjects and War Profiteer in Avaricious, and then the building cost/time modifiers and Divided Attention (+2 Domain limit) in Architect. But I will complete both with most rulers, with Architect usually first if I'm in a building phase.
      • Extort Subject does nothing if you have no Count level vassals.
      • Again, some of these are a waste, but I found that I could be sitting at 10/7 Domain limit until I could complete these, so they became a necessity. I stubbornly refused to give up counties though.
    • Breeding programs: From the beginning, begin breeding in superior genetic traits into your family line. You will want intelligence (Quick, Intelligent, Genius) first and foremost (again for stewardship), but they're all good. Marry your chosen heir to women with those traits, marry your daughters to men with those traits (though don't forget about the occasional strategic alliance, especially in the early game). Your goal is just have as many of those traits floating around in your kingdom, not just in the next generation, but 3+ generations down the line when inbreeding isn't as much as a problem. (But you will be inbreeding) We will deal with other sons under the Dynasty section.
      • Making sure the correct heir inherits can be manipulated in a variety of ways, so you should have a good understanding of how to bring that about. I personally prefer to only use the disinherit mechanic, or fight it out in succession, but there are other cheesy/not cheesy ways to do it.
      • Don't forget that if you own every county in your duchy, tyranny matters a lot less. Sometimes you are 65 years old and don't care anymore, so imprison and execute the eldest son(s) with shit stats. A bunch of mayors aren't gonna do nothing and you'll be dead soon anyways.
    • Marry a woman with high stewardship - your spousal bonus will also help your domain limit problem - and do the same for your chosen heirs. If you happen to inherit a wife who isn't good, you may want to divorce and start a new family, especially if you already have a good heir.

    Ensuring a high stewardship is important because of all the counties you will want to hold, not just for the wealth/levies it gives you, but because you will be spending a large part of your income improving these counties. Nothing worse than giving out a county to some whelp who uses all your investment to rebel against you in a generation.

    Building up your counties is probably the most important and central aspect to a Tall playthrough, but it often requires some careful planning and forethought. After all, you will be stuck with these for centuries, so it's worth your while to get the right buildings and upgrades in them. This means you will have a slow start compared to say, Vikings rampaging across Britain, but within a few generations you should significantly outperform equivalent sized duchies (or even kingdoms), since you will have few vassals and will have begun maximizing building/county slots.

    • Look at which buildings can be built in your baronies. Mountain baronies have different options than farmland baronies, or forest baronies, or desert. Don't be afraid to go all in - make a farmland county only have development/gold income buildings. At the same time, some counties should just focus on levies.
      • Tradeports are great to increase development, but can only be built on the coast. I prefer coastal duchies to play tall in for this reason.
    • Keep track of which buildings you are constructing - do they have a special unit bonus (like archers or spearman or light cav)? For instance, if you have a lot of forest/hills, build a lot of Hunting Grounds. Each give a bonus to light cav, so every county has one, make sure to in turn invest in Light Cavalry Men-At-Arms. Normally they're okay, but with focused and targeted bonuses, they will be much more powerful than anything you will encounter from your opponents.
    • You only get bonuses from counties you directly control - if you give them out to a vassal you will lose them, and the vassal will get it instead!
      • Focus building up counties you know will always be inherited, and ignore ones you think you might have to give out to vassal or a second son.
    • Once you have built up your Castle that holds the county, start building up your baronies. If your game is going well, you will have more than enough gold. You aren't looking to own these baronies (although you can if you have the domain limit space!), but Temples and Cities have some good buildings only they can build that will help the county out. They usually will not have enough money to start building, but after you hit level 2 City/Temple, they tend to start building themselves more regularly.
      • Don't forget to upgrade not only your castle to level 2 when you get the tech, as it's not super apparent the way building upgrades/slots are. Then make sure to upgrade your other baronies to level 2 Cities/Temples - this is a huge bonus that often requires a significant investment for a Mayor/Bishop.
    • Understand the layout of your Duchy. If you have a mountain county that you know the Karlings are going to walk through when they inevitably come knocking on your door, make sure to build things that increase Defender advantage. Build not only for money/levies, but also considering where you might be attacked, or where you might never be attacked.
      • Defender advantage is in your favour when your enemy is sieging a province, even though you are attacking them. Try to lure their armies into sieging a Mountain county filled with upgraded Hill Forts and Outposts, and you can easily get a free +40 advantage. I have used this to beat armies twice my size.
    • When you have the gold, start filling those county slots with Cities/Temples/Castles. It's easy to forget since they're so expensive, but make sure you fill every barony and then upgrade those new holdings for yourself or a vassal.

    As you might imagine, building and upgrading all of these baronies/counties takes a lot of gold and a lot of time. But, once you have the ball rolling it gets easier and easier. As your cultural fascination (technology) develops, you should begin planning advancements that unlock buildings to coincide with having a surplus of funds. I found eventually you begin to have waves of investment that stop when everything you can build has been built, and you're waiting on the next tech unlock.

    This means you have to be planning ahead. Unlocking the next level for Castles for instance, could mean +5000 gold investment over the course a few years, so be ready for it. It will still be a long time before you have "enough" gold, as you will either be spending it constantly, or building it up for 20-30 years down the line when you will need to spend 10,000 gold in a decade.

    The exception to this is probably Mali. gold gold gold.

    A lot of these buildings will seemingly do very little unless you match it with development growth. Each point in development increases a county's supply by 150, and for Feudal/Clan rulers (hence why Tall Tribal is more difficult) it increases taxes and levies by 0.5%!

    • Yes I know this doesn't seem like much, except development also increases the speed at which you unlock tech / cultural fascination, but only based on average cultural province development, which means it takes the average development of every province of your culture. This is why you want small cultural footprints that you control entirely, and can boost the development growth with buildings in each one. These will radiate out from your capital.
      • Within a century or two from start, you buildings expansion, plus development growth, plus tech advancements leading to building upgrades, will cause a significant difference in money and levies compared to your neighbours.
    • Early on, you need to identify where your capital county will be (generally the capital of your primary duchy, so you have that Duchy building), and that will be your capital for the entire game. This is important, because you will have your Steward do nothing but Increase Development in County Task at that location for the entire game. There will never be any need to take them off this.
      • Make sure to identify buildings that boost development and build in your capital. Generally I use other counties for military focused buildings for this reason. Like I said above, Tradeposts are very good for this.
    • If it's not apparent from above, do not spread your culture, as this will dilute your average development. Of course, you can play tall without a focused culture (you can play in whatever way brings you joy!), but it's certainly less ideal.

    Managing your Dynasty will become a core aspect of your playthrough. Since you don't want to expand your actual realm borders through aggressive wars, you will instead be focusing on expanding your dynasty control through aggressive wars. All those disinherited sons you gather up every generation need some place to go!

    • The best way to do this is to marry your sons to daughters with claims that you want to push. I generally wait to push the claim until I am sure that my grandson or nephew has the claim, but you can go earlier and push your daughter-in-law (or son-in-law if you snagged a matrilineal marriage) if you want. Aim for neighbouring duchies at first, then kingdoms as you grow more powerful
      • You can arrange strategic marriage and just wait and see if your dynasty inherits, if you're looking to avoid wars. Sometimes I just marry a son or matrilineally marry a daughter to some far flung realm just so I can check back on my dynasty in Persia in 100 years to see how they did. (usually they die)
    • Help out your dynasty members. Once they have a title, make sure to ally them and actually help out in their wars! The first 10-20 years will be the most dangerous, and you want to ensure they win the civil war or peasant rebellion. Otherwise you will check back and some yahoo karling will be on the throne instead.
    • Dynasty Legacies become increasingly important in helping your brethren keep their titles and expand, but early on I find it's much better to use Renown to disinherit rather than worry about that. Eventually, as you push out more and more sons, these points will come more and more quickly.

    Eventually, you will want to create your own religion with Warmongering/Pursuit of Power, so you can just launch wholesale Kingdom claim wars without marriage. Give your disinherited son as many duchies and counties as you can, slap the kingdom title on them, and they will go independent. Like before, ally and help them win the inevitable wars that follow your conquest.

    • If you get to that point, make sure to make incest (or cousin-incest at least) legal, so you can keep your breeding program strong.
    • I would also suggest temporal faith leader, choose Communion, and make a lot of things sinful, seize control of holy sites to declare yourself Pope (or whatever). Then your sinful followers will have to pay you to enter heaven.. So more money for the Tall build.
    • You will likely have to dip into Learning Lifestyle and grab the Prophet perk under the Theologian tree (three down on the left) for -50% Faith creation, as well as go on several pilgrimages/crusades to get enough piety. When you're ready for this, plan ahead!

    More generally, you should still be going to war fairly frequently. If you start as a vassal, you might be supporting other vassals claims, or supporting whatever whackadoodle war your Duke/King gets involved in. Often the stakes are small, but you will be much more involved in what your neighbours are doing. When you ally someone, fight their wars ! You want your allies to be successful so they can continue protecting you. Or, you want your liege-lord to survive so they can continue protecting you while you are small and building your economy/development/levies.

    • I have never followed a war more closely than my Duke House leader supporting a rebellion against the King whose power protected my far flung county from invasion. I wanted the King to win, but also wanted my dynasty to grow and didn't want to see their title get revoked. So I did nothing, but I was glued to northern Italy as it burned for half a decade.
    • Crusades are a great way to install your dynasty on thrones, but make sure you have the army power to contribute sufficiently, and the piety (500) to target some place other than god-damned Jerusalem. Assume that the AI will do nothing useful, so if you want to be safe, you should have the numbers to fight the primary enemy alone.
    • Hire Mercenaries! You're rich beyond your wildest dreams, but sometimes those big nasty kingdoms next to you think you are weak. I have had wars where I spent like 2000g on 4500 mercenaries for 9 years, increasing my army size by 50%. Sometimes my army is away, and another army comes knocking, so I will throw down 800g just to form an army to kill one stack that is trying to siege my capital. Mercs give you a lot of flexibility.
      • Sometimes I just buy mercs because I want their men-at-arms regiments to counteract my opponent's and make them feel bad. In tight wars, this may be a necessity. Also keep an eye out on the Mercenary General who comes with it - they can be a boon if your own ranks are lacking.

    Tall Playthrough Guide

    So far, I have reviewed some of the lifestyle, education, economy, and military choices that will help sustain a tall duchy/kingdom. These tips can help out whereever you decide to play tall, but I wanted to outline a specific start if you are overwhelmed by the options.

    First, a couple of points about the decisions to make when deciding who to play. You will have to decide whether you want to play as a vassal or independent ruler - either because you start off as a vassal, or you plan to swear fealty. Personally, I prefer the vassal start, as it gives you a safety net against neighbours and you can spend a century or so playing internal politics and wars. It just depends what goals you are after.

    • Maybe you want to make your brother a fellow Duke, and then King? Maybe you want to stem the tide against the foreign culture invading your enlightened duchy by setting up your dynasty around you? Maybe you want to zoom by at speed 5 and ignore all that crap? I suggest thinking about what you want to do, not just for your starting character, but for your dynasty over the next 100 years. Choose a goal, and see if you can make it happen!

    You also might want to consider just using the Ruler Designer and, if you don't care about Ironman, you can really set up a prime character and spouse following the tips I've laid out above. Just crank that stewardship and genetic supremacy.

    • If you are an Iron player, I would aim for a 16 year old ruler with Midas Touched (Top Stewardship education) and Quick (Intelligence level 1 trait). For traits, try Diligent, Temperate, and Stubborn. This should be 376 points and roughly 20 Stewardship. There are other stewardship traits like Just and Greedy, but they come with negative outcomes. You can't torture or punish others without stress, and greedy gets stress when you hand away titles. Make sure your spouse has high stewardship as well, but you may want to consider making her honest. If she cheats on you, she will admit it.

    So there are a lot options for you, but what I think is a really fun start to play tall is Sardinia and Corsica in 867, as Oliviero di Cinarca, Count of Vecchio in southern Corsica. You are a minor scion of the Bonifazi Dynasty, outclassed by your cousin Duke Adalberto of Tusacny to the east, and Count Berardo of Siena. Your father, Count Cinarco, inherited the title from his brother, the firstborn son of your grandfather, Duke Bonifacio I of Tuscany, himself the son of the unlanded founder of House Bonifazi.

    • This is a difficult start! You have one county, but it is a great tall start, allowing you go all the way up to the Kingdom of Sardinia without much expansion. You can climb your way there through the Duchy of Corsica, then look south to Sardinia, all under the protection of the King of Italy (if he survives!). You have your own Sardinian culture, you can jump invading armies that try to land on your islands, and a goldmine in the Bishopric of Cagliari county to the south.
    • There's a lot of potential here depending how the Karlings pan out. You can mess around in Italy, give out duchies and kingdoms to your sons cleaved from Muslims lands in Africa or Spain, or reach out to duchies in West Francia (soon to be Aquitane in most games). You have easy access to Crusades, or any number of little islands you can set up dynastic duchies in under your King's protection - or your own if you are ready to strike your own path.
    • And when/if you form your own religion, you can easily pop out to Santiago, Rome and Jerusalem to claim your rightful place as Pope.
    • Every game can be different because in 867, Europe is in real turmoil. There's no cornerstone Holy Roman Empire like 1066. You do have to watch out for an aggressive Byzantine move into southern Italy or Africa, but roll with it if they do.
    • Count Oliviero is also hardcoded for a Stewardship lifestyle with a young son already born, and no spouse, so you can choose a good one.

    When the game starts, do the following:

    • Choose Wealth focus for Stewardship. I recommend getting Cutting Cornerstones and Professional Workforce under Architect, before switching to the Avaricious tree. You won't need the later ones right away in Architect, but that early bonus to building is well worth it.
    • Second, look for a wife with an Intelligent trait and high stewardship. You will be switching her spouse focus to Domain for whatever extra gold you can muster.

    There are a few reasons you may want to restart at the beginning:

    • One, if you didn't start with any perks in Stewardship. This can happen, and not having isn't a big deal, but you might as well restart if you don't have them.
    • Two, just as unimportant, but your son's Childhood trait will fire right away. If it's not a good stewardship one, you might want to restart.
    • Three, and perhaps most important, you need to see what your cousin the Duke of Tuscany does with his 7 titles. He can usually only manage 4-5, so he will give some away. If he doesn't give away Ajaccio to the north, just reset. He often does, but sometimes doesn't. This is going to be your first war target, and the capital of Corsica, so an important first conquest. If you want a special challenge though, forge ahead! When he dies, his titles will likely get split up among much easier to manage sons.

    You have two money goals for these first years. You will use your Suffragan Bishop to fabricate a claim on Ajaccio. This will cost around 75-100 gold, so be ready for it.

    You should focus on building your levies up. You are probably around 230, but you will need to ensure you have the armies to siege the capital of Ajaccio while suffering attrition, using the survivors who defeat the Ajaccio army. You should definitely aim for be one barracks and two Man-at-Arms, but you might want more depending what Ajaccio builds.

    • This will cost around 175-200g, depending if you have building cost reduction perks and which MaA you purchase. It doesn't really matter which MaA you get to be honest, but you might want to try to counter Ajaccio's MaA, or your likely rival to the south, Sardinia's Judike of Cagliari.

    This is going to take a few years, so you can speed it up, or keep an eye on your cousin the Duke of Tuscany (your liege), the Karling kingdoms, or whoever. Or see whatever that rascal Haesteinn of Montaigu gets up to (East Francia probably lmao), or how Alfred of Wessex fares against the Sons of Ragnar. A lot of shit happens in the next few decades.

    • Convert to Sardinian culture once you feel like you can. You are the Sardinian Cadet House of Bonifazi now!
    • Start thinking about alliances. You have one son, and you should have more children soon. I would highly recommend allying Tuscany - this is not the best alliance, but it is very fun to help support your liege AND House head in whatever tomfoolery the AI gets up to. You may also want to ally a southern Duke in West Francia or another Italian. Venice is also a good potential ally, but their rulers usually inherit old as they are a republic and don't last long.
      • Try to get alliances close enough where you can actually help. Gives you something to do with low stakes.
    • For now, since you don't own your capital, don't worry about Increase Development with your Steward. It doesn't hurt to do it, but you will need whatever gold you can get now. Keep your Marshal on Organize Levies for that boost to take out Ajaccio but you may have to switch to County Control.
    • Start looking for secrets in the court of your liege and cousin, the Duke of Tuscany. If you can find one on the Duke, you should modify your feudal contract asap to get Title Revocation protection because... you never know what the future holds. There is a chance someone will be trying to kill your son or you, so be careful with this. Usually there aren't any, especially early on, but you never know.
      • If you do get a lot of blackmail, you will be able to use those hooks for gold once you get Golden Obligations perk in the Avaricious tree.
    • Did you put your spouse on Domain focus?
    • Try to get a better son with whatever traits you can inherit from your wife. Hopefully #2 but it is a crapshoot.

    It can take a while to overcome Ajaccio, but once you do, fabricate a claim on Bastia. It's probably owned by the Duke of Tuscany, but you will hopefully be taking it once he dies and one of his sons inherits the Duchy of Corsica and that single county (if you're lucky). Once you conquer that (watch out for enemy alliances here), you will automatically become vassal to the King of Italy, and 250 gold later you will be Duke of Corsica!

    Your next goal will be conquering the island of Sardinia, and taking your place as head of Sardinian culture. I would recommend getting Plenary Assemblies for the Crown Authority and the ability to revoke titles. This is a long ways away, but if you still have say 3/6 counties for your domain limit, you will want to take over some baronies.

    From here on out, things get a bit chaotic to predict. Hopefully this is enough to get a taste of this fun playthrough, but I will remind you again that this specific county can be difficult. Follow the steps above to solidify your economy/military in Corsica and Sardinia, and set some goals for yourself, but don't be afraid to make mistakes, restart, or just play another Tall Duchy entirely.

    Sorry, you won't conquer the world with 8 counties, that was a click bait lie.

    Please feel free to add to, comment on, or outright correct anything you see here!

    submitted by /u/WaferDisastrous
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    Some questions about Populist Factions

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 08:19 AM PST

    I know I asked about populist factions fairly recently, but I have something else that I'm curious about; also, there's no wiki page for populist factions yet, so I can't look it up.

    Populist factions are the greatest threat to playing as I prefer (as a vassal) so I find them important to know about.

    1. Do populist factions occur if your counties share either a culture or religion with your liege, but not both? I assume that they're decreased but not eliminated.

    2. And are they affected by your counties' faiths view of your liege's faith? Like will I have less populist factions with a Hostile or Astray faith than an Evil faith?

    3. Finally are populist factions affected by mine or my liege's Popular Opinion? If it's the former I could try and keep it high. If it's the latter then I'm SoL.

    Thank you for any answers!

    submitted by /u/BoxedElderGnome
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    Which Start date do you play the most in Ck3?

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 08:17 AM PST

    AAR from my Dynasty's Perspective in a CK3 Roleplay MP Game (PART2) "Revenge of the Reds"

    Posted: 14 Jan 2021 11:48 AM PST
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