Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Mantis » Wed Oct 21, 2020 4:55 pm

I think the country was united because one of my friends messed up an enormous war and had to pay reparations to the claimant who then had more than enough gold to reform the kingdom.

I'm having much more success on single player now that I've had time to read all the tool tips. It took King Murchad a mere eleven years to unite Ireland as one kingdom. He excelled at war and quickly pressed many duchies into vassalage before the last few agreed to make him their liege without a fight.

I've been busy abroad too. Early doors I married a land holding Princess of the minor kingship of Leon, setting our heirs up to inherit her county. Everything was going swimmingly until I discovered that my insidious wife harbored incestuous thoughts for her brother, the petty king of Leon and that she considered him her true love.

His heart broken, but ever the opportunist, Murchad immediately blackmailed the petty king with this startling revelation into betrothing his only heir, a daughter, to Murdach's first grandson, ensuring that their line would inherit vast swathes of northern Spain should the current king meet an untimely end. Unfortunately, before he could meet any such end he pumped out two more sprogs, both boys, pushing the young girl far down the line of succession.

Not to be deterred, and with some degree of vengefulness in his heart, Murchad immediately set about murdering the petty king. The plot succeeded remarkably, aided by none other than the kings own incestuous sister, clearly something had occurred between them to make her forsake her sworn lover. Yet despite the covertness with which the plot was carried out, the petty king suspected Murdach and cried out his name with his dying breath, labeling me a murderer, sullying Murdach's name on the basis of nothing but a hunch. This destroyed all relations Murdach had with the rest of northern Spain, who all seemed to be brothers with the deceased king.

His own wife admonished him for his actions despite her own part in the plot, though presumably this was just to keep up appearances as she was well up for the second plot to murder her dead-lover-brother's infant son. And the one after that to polish off his final male heir. She wasn't overly keen on his daughter either but the young girl's betrothal to Murdach's grandson stayed the assassin's blade.

At last, with Irish unification on the horizon and his dynasty secured in Leon, Murdach checked in on his grandsons betrothed only to find that she'd recently developed a case of the bubonic plague and the poor girl was on deaths door. All that scheming seemingly for naught, not to mention the murdering of children had pushed the poor king Murdach into self flagellation out of guilt. Thankfully she pulled through, though safe to say she won't grow up to be a looker.

That roughly brings us up to present, eleven years of scheming and plotting with a United Ireland and Spain in chaos. With six children of his own and two grandchildren, Murdach set about educating them to be the future stewards, diplomats and spy masters of his empire, hoping his children might avoid the same bloody life he had led. The apple didn't fall far from the tree with his eldest though who, at 27 years old, was touring the counties challenging the vassals to duels.

Regicide and infanticide had seemingly given Murdach's wife a taste for blood, as she had begun to relentlessly war with her brother, the petty king of Castille, in a bid to claim more counties for herself. Now in his mid fifties, Murdach was hoping to retire and leave the warring behind, but war was all he'd ever been good at. With a resigned sense of duty to increase his future heirs kingdom, and to placate his terrifying bloodthirsty wife, the Irish army set sail for the war torn shores of northern Spain.

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Snowy » Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:55 am

=D>
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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Mantis » Thu Oct 22, 2020 9:39 pm

Unused to fighting on foreign soil, King Murdach’s armies were decimated in the war, resulting in the imprisonment of his spymaster in King Sancho's dungeons.

Thankfully Murdach’s wife turned out to be as poor a military commander as him and the war was brought to a swift conclusion, allowing for the negotiating and release of his spymaster for a surprisingly cheap sum.

War not being her strong suit, the beloved Queen returned to her old ways and on three occasions she was spied sneaking away from her bedchambers at night. One can only speculate which brother she was sleeping with this time, as when confronted about it the accusations seemed only to upset her. It's not like she has form for this kind of thing…

No sooner had his levies arrived back home, King Murdach looking forward to spending his last days consolidating his throne, another war in northern Spain broke out. This time the beleaguered Irish king faced a call to arms from Queen Ermesinda of Leon, the very same young woman he had schemed to put on the throne after betrothing her to his grandson.

All the more ambitious than her incestuous Aunt, this time the young Queen’s target was not just a neighbouring barony, but the entire Kingdom of Galicia itself which had recently been absorbed by that dastardly King Sancho of Castille. Not being able to resist potentially gifting his future generations with an entire extra kingdom, King Murdach loaded his men back onto the ships.

Things seemed to be going well enough at home anyway, enjoying enormous popularity among his council and most powerful vassals, the 57 year old king felt that he had adequately set the stage for his heir, Prince Brian. Regardless, the stresses of adultery and child murder over the years had only been piled on top of one another and the king found himself at wits end. Despite being in the process of leading a siege of the barony of Monte Faro, crafty King Murdach still managed to find the time to slip away into the cities brothels. Set to a backdrop of flaming arrows and siege weapons battering the walls, the old king banged his worries away.

It only seemed the right thing to do, given that despite the recent confrontation with his lovely wife and her protests of innocence, our spymaster discovered that she had acquired a taste for lowborn Spanish men. King Murdach could hardly come to despise her though, if anything he admired her ingenuity, as the lowborn man was currently a prisoner in King Sancho's dungeons.

Monte Faro seemed to be the final hurdle leading to victory, as the city was subject to a series of breaches, as the king pulled up his britches; King Sancho conceded and retreated to Castille, swelling the Kingdom of Leon to twice its former size. Content that he had sown the seeds for future generations in more ways than one, Murchad headed back to Britannia to aid the Principality of Deheubarth in an uprising against the King of Wales. Presumably at some point King Murchad had betrothed one of his spare children to the local Lord to foster this alliance. He was getting old and his memory wasn't what it was.

No sooner than arriving in Wales, Murdach's wife requests his aid in yet another war against her brother. Frankly fed up with this constant back and forth, the king decides to blackmail her, threatening to expose her kink for locked up working class people. The result isn't quite what Murdach is expecting, the Queen tells him to do one and that he holds no sway over her. Faced now with the question of exposing her secret, Murdach can't bring himself to do it. He hasn't exactly been a paragon himself. He drops the issue, though affirms to himself that he's not getting on anymore damn boats. That will put her in her place.

It's at this point when setting foot on British soil he realises that King William has been deposed by the Norwegians. Not entirely sure when that happened, having spent the majority of his adult life obsessed with northern Spain, King Murdach concludes that he is too old for this shit.

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Me99 » Thu Nov 05, 2020 9:58 pm

So I'll tell the story of the mighty Count of Gothenburg in the Kingdom of East Francia on Iron mode. Some mistakes were made ¬_¬

Why Gothenburg you ask? Because it has a gold mine giving a massive 5 gold per month right off the bat, at a level 1 building. Started with an annoying issue, My Count controlled about 4 more counties then he had the stewardship to actually rule properly so my only option was to grant the shitter counties to someone else.

First mistake, as a count, if I give away a County I lose control of it. I cant have a vassal at the same level as me so at a stroke I'd lost half lands on day 1.

Still, no biggy, Gothenburg is the only county that matters due to the enormous wealth it generated after I spent half a decade saving up to buy the mine and then building. Things started well, I quickly expanded after Gothenburg was built up and was a Duke in a few short generations. My initial counties were spread around a few dukedoms so I actually ended up as the Duke of an Anult which didn't include Gothenburg and was at the far west of domains. No matter I thought at the time. I continued to expand and became one of the richest Dukes, using my wealth to hire large mercenary armies to do my fighting for me while being kept safe as the vassal of East Francia. The obvious advantage of being the vassal of a large and powerful feudal lord is being kept safe from external enemies while still having the freedom to attack my fellow vassals of East Francia with impunity.

Second mistake, being a vassal of the King and East Franica and not paying attention to his wars.

The old King of East Francia had several wars as the years past, and none really concerned me, nestled in the heart of his territories, until that fateful day that would bring about the near ruin of my Duke. You see, I noticed a very large group of armies descending from the north through my lands, which obviously peaked my interest. I wasn't at war with anyone so what the hell were they doing near Gothenburg? It looked to be a large Polish army oddly, and then I noticed to my East that Poland was looking pretty damn large. Checking my Lieges wars, and yes, disastrously, Poland was pressing a claim on the East Franica itself! My King had already exhausted his army on the massive 35k ish army of Poland and was on course to lose. I had about 14k in the bank so I brought up my levys and augmented them with a very large mercenary army, at nearly 9k it was the largest I'd ever needed. I managed to knock out a couple of Poland's armies but eventually the hammer dropped and their combined armies rolled me over. The war lost, East Franica survived but much reduced in size,the Northen half of the Kingdom gone to the Polish. Luckily I'd expanded south and east enough that I survived the loss too, unluckily I was left with only 2 counties at the furthest reaches of the Dukedom, just north of Bavaria. Gothenburg lost! I was now much much smaller and weaker than when I'd started.

My poor Duke was starting from scratch. Worse than that even as he now had less lands and far less income. One goal remained, retake Gothenburg! One advantage remained, my wealth! I still had 10k in gold readily available(I think I started the game with 50 gold, for reference). I quickly spent that raising mercenary armies to take lands from the Counts and Dukes around me. The cash was essential as without mercs I couldn't even raise 1k men from my tiny levies for war, not enough men for any sort of conquest. As I continued to to expand and edge my way back North and East towards Gothenburg the world developed around me. My liege changed, no longer was I under the King of East Francia, but now I was the vassal of the breakaway kingdom of Bavaria! East Francia reduced further while even Poland began to wane. I made 2 attempts during this time to make a smash and grab for Gothenburg. Once while Poland were at war I tried, relying on my allies to do the heavy lifting. I lost only when my allies started their own wars and their attention left my lands to there own. The second time the King of Bavaria decided to press my claim on Gothenburg for me, which I thought very kind until we failed, and with that loss went my claim on Gothenburg too. Still I kept going and finally spent the last of my money improving the lands of Messiaen where most of my lands now resided. It would be hundreds of years before I'd again have more than 1k in gold available. It was at this point I noticed my precarious position as Duke, I was technically still the Duke of Anult in law, but I held no lands there. At any point the Polish could usurp my title, so I created a second Dukedom title and made myself the Duke of Meesian to secure my position!

Third mistake, having two Ducal Titles while still having the High Partition Succession Law.

You see, it hadn't occurred to me that in Partition Succession my Dukes titles would be split amongst his sons, I'd thought the Heir would keep the high level titles. He does not. He's only guaranteed to keep the Primary title. I foolishly left Anult as my Primary title which upon my current Dukes death caused my newly created Messiaen title to go to my heirs brother! Now, my Family had gone through centuries of brothers fighting brothers to regain lost lands due to succession laws but normally my heir was far more powerful. Not this time. If you remember, I had no lands in anult while most of my lands were in Messiaen. Which I'd just lost. After spending the last of my fortune developing those lands... Which I now lacked the power and gold to retake in a war. This left me again with only a handful of counties, most of my lands gone, and pushed even further South and East. Farther and farther from fabled Gothenburg!

So I started again, again. I began once more to expand, this time relying on the armies of my powerful allies Byzantium and Alba, in place of the mercenaries I could once afford in droves. My long Bene Gesserit breeding program came to its conclusion with a Beautiful, Herculean, Genius heir. From this point on my dynasty would always have these traits giving me some of the best genetics in the world. Again the world continued to change, my brothers lands were quickly lost to the Polish and then in a massive reversal, the lands of the King of Poland gave way again and returned to the King of Francia before itself breaking up once into independent dukedoms. Both kings remained a shadow of their former selves. I used this opportunity to reclaim the Dukedom title of Messiaen and destroyed the title of Anult, ensuring no matter what my heir would inherit my best lands. Over the next century or two I slowly reclaimed all the lands lost in the last 300 or 400 odd years, making my way back North West towards Gothenburg with what would become my great old Duke. The now independent Dukedoms around me proving increasingly easy pickings

During the old Dukes reign an odd thing happened. My liege changed again. This time Pomerania had broken away from Bavaria taking my now large Dukedom with it. Looking at this new kingdom I was a part of it quickly became clear what I should do. My new Kings lands were made up of my on Dukedom and a single country to the far north of my borders held by my king, a 5 year old boy. Thats right, my King owned a single county and I was his only vassal, about 30 times larger than he was. INDEPENDENCE WAR! A very short war latter and Dukedom of Messiaen was finally free of all interference! Towards the end of the old duke reign he began to amass too many vassal to manage, the only solution was to become the first King of Messiaen! At the very end of the now Old Kings reign he almost completed the goal of this family since the dark days when the riches of Gothenburg were lost. He finally retook the county of Gothenburg from a powerful independent Duke and made a vassal of the owner. All that remained was to make a claim on Gothenburg and finally press it successfully! What could stop him?

Forth Mistake, having a shit heir.

Disaster, the old king died suddenly of obesity which he had been fighting for some years. His heir, while Handsome, Hale and a Genius also had several sinful traits. He was devious, wrathful and lustful, all his vassal hated him! Quickly several factions of vassals emerged to overthrow him. The two most powerful factions tried to reduce the authority of the crown and place another on the throne of Messiaen! I tried to quell the rebellion with kind words for some, gold for others and assassination for a alot. It was not enough. As a final gambit I tried to imprison one of my most powerful vassals to take the edge off, it had a good chance to succeed, but failed anyway! Instantly every unhappy vassal rose up against me, which was most of them, to try to take me down. Even with my old allies I lost the war and stared the end in the face, but finally the mistake I'd made by trying to imprison my vassal worked in my favor. instead of a war for Messiaen itself, it became a war against my Kings tyranny and so rather than losing the kingdom, he was deposed in favor of his son. The Dynasty would live on!

This king managed to hold the realm together through a new succession crisis. He managed to hold of another attempt on the throne and gave in to a request lower crown authority to keep the peace. With the realm finally stable Gothenburg was again claimed and pressed successfully. Gothenburg was ours once more! The capital of the kingdom was moved there and its Dukedom taken directly under the control of the king. This king was both Kind, Generous and Forgiving and his vassals loved him for it. Gothenburgs former owners had used its wealth to heavily develop the county giving the new king a large castle and bigger gold mine to go with it. With the wealth of the Kingdom expanding rapidly and her armies now numbering much higher than the Polish army that originally taken Gothenburg from us, all was finally secure!

Fifth Mistake, STRESS!

Over the years I'd learned one of the best ways to keep a vassal inline and away from joining any plots was to keep a some blackmail on them. My previous king wasn't in power look enough to get his hook into his vassals before all hell broke lose so I was set on further securing the realm by getting some blackmail material on as many vassals as I could. I blackmail about 15 vassals at once which it turns out if a very Bad Idea if your king is Kind, Generous and Forgiving as it causes stress. Alot of stress. So much stress my heroic king keeled over and died of a heart attack leaving a 6 year old heir! My vassals once again fermented rebellion, one faction seeking to reduce the crown authority even further and another to place a distance aunt, Aunt FUCKING Edwin! on the thrown. As before I gave in to requests to let go of some of the crowns power to keep the peace, but this time it wasn't enough, a war for the kingdom of Messiaen broke out. Aunt FUCKING CUNTYBOLLOCKS! won... After the dust had settle my child heir was now only a Count once more with 3 counties which would soon be reduced to 1 when Aunt FUCKING WANKER took them off us. Leaving us the Count of one county and now smaller and weaker than we'd ever been and Gothenburg lost once more...

Not long after we were reduced a single county Aunt TWATFACE then tried to revoke that from my still prepubescent count leading us to the only option, reject the request and go to war against a kingdom 60 times larger and I was. I get the feeling some Pomerania family was quite happy about this. I again called upon my old allies of Alba and this time what was left of Bavaria to help. It went very poorly, my tiny army was beaten from pillar to post and my allies didn't fair much better. It was a long war of attrition as I tried to keep my county free for as long as possible by drawing the enemy armies away and winning what small sieges I could. Whilst waging this medieval guerilla warfare a strange thing happened, my Aunties armies started to dwindle while my allies armies grew, I can only assume she'd tried my old trick of hiring a large mercenary army to have the numbers advantage. The problem with Mercs is they only last 3 years, in long drawn out war you'll eventually lose them. It managed to turn the tide for a while but the war was still in the balance until we finally caught Auntie FUCKING DICKHEAD! in a siege and ended the war! This left my Aunt in a awkward position, you see technically my Count was her heir as she'd yet to have children so my mighty count who was still a child leapfrogged from count of fucking nowere to once again claim the title of King of Messiaen! Gothenburg restored once more!

After Torturing Aunt FUCKHEAD to DEATH Messiaen grew and grew. The lands of Bavaria were taken, followed by Bohemia, Poland and what was left of East Francia. The King finally became an Emperor as his lands grew to stretch from the south east of Spain all the way to the far east of Poland. The southern half of France was ours along with Northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary. The Byzantine empire grew massive in the east and not once did I go to war with my old ally, even though I could call on 170k troops and all the mercenaries that could be hired. My vassals conquered the far North, leaving me with the lands of Scandinavia without ever having to actually fight a war there myself. Randomly one of my heirs changed religion to bunch of naturist without me noticing. This had the advantage of being able to wage Holy wars all over Western Europe at will. We stayed heretics from the catholic faith until a Crusade made us hastily reconsider that choice and reconvert back to Catholicism.

The realm befell no further mistakes and lasted until the end of the game, finishing as the richest and most powerful dynasty in the World. I do wonder how far they would have gone if it hadn't take 300 odd years to reclaim Gothenburg and we hadn't been set back to square one 3 fucking times.

The End.

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:34 pm

:lol:

Christ, I think I'd have rage-quit about five times over by then.

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Mantis » Thu Nov 05, 2020 11:05 pm

I've fallen foul of those same issues plenty of times. It's particularly frustrating when you've got a really good heir lined up only for them to die young through some nefarious reason.

Makes for some entertaining reads though.

I was on the verge of creating the Empire of Ireland with all of Britain and swathes of Spain in my control with my save, only for my character to die from cancer right before I could create the title and the whole kingdom was divided up between four kids.

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Me99 » Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:11 am

Sly Boots wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:34 pm
:lol:

Christ, I think I'd have rage-quit about five times over by then.
I wasn't too bad. I went into it in iron man mode because I wanted to be forced to play through the mistakes. I'd normally just reload all the time. Although to be fair I alt tabbed out during the tryanny war againest the aunt and waited for the game to end, with only one county I assumed I'd lose. Went back in and suddenly her armies were tiny and my allies winning!

Yeah mantis, waiting for title creation can be painful if your king is old, especially if you get stuck in a long war at the time! Partiton is a bitch, takes ages to get primogenitor laws.

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Mantis » Fri Nov 06, 2020 11:43 am

One trick I've found to get around partition law is spending prestige to disinherit unwanted sons. They grow up to hate you, and I'm pretty sure one of them murdered my only male heir when he came of age, but it's an easy way to ensure all your titles pass down to the same person.

I only really do it if the partition looks like it's going to result in my kingdom being broken up, like when I had the Kingdoms of Ireland, Wales and Leon for instance and really didn't want two of them being given out to my other children.

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Me99 » Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:48 am

Gotta be careful with that as it also spends renown which takes ages to acquire.

The key is to only have one top level title and destroy any new new top level titles you obtain. That ensures your realm cant break up and you should be easily able to win back any important counties. Assuming you've gotten out of confederate partition as that will re-make titles to give to your brothers, automatically. So in your case the only king title you needed to have kept was Ireland, the rest should have been destroyed.

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Mantis » Sat Nov 07, 2020 11:45 am

Yeah that's also a viable method, one that I usually stick with, but I was pushing hard to form a new empire at that point and needed to hold 3 kingdoms. I'd already formed them in preparation and it would have been too costly to destroy the titles and make them again.

Funnily enough, that's the one example where I didn't disinherit anyone. I died of cancer right before I had saved enough to form the empire and I lost two kingdoms to siblings and over two thirds of my land.

I decided to have a break after that and haven't played it since. :lol:

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Re: Crusader Kings 3: on Steam and PC Game Pass

Post by Me99 » Mon Nov 09, 2020 9:25 am

Arh right, yeah its always squeaky bum time when your waiting to make the bigger titles.

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