Last week, Paradox announced its 14th expansion for Crusader Kings 2, the publisher’s medieval kingdoms simulator. Jade Dragon sees China added to the political melting pot, a nation that has always been hinted at – simply by being present on the far east of the world map – but never actually present within the game.
Playing as Petty King of Wessex in Old Gods and managed to unite the de jure duchies of Cornwall, Wessex, Mercia, Kent, and one other place. I decided that I was going to give the county's that make up Cornwall (2 of them) to my courtier that has 18 martial and the content trait, and is only 24 years old. However, when I gave him both of the county's, and then granted him the duchy of cornwall, he became an indpedent country. Like the striped border showed and he was no longer part of my kingdom.
There’s no word on how Jade Dragon will impact Hillary Clinton’s medieval rule.
China won’t play like any other nation already in Crusader Kings 2, so what follows is a rundown of the major changes it brings to the game – get yourself ready.
The expansion adds China without really adding China
In an odd twist, despite being the focus of the new expansion, China won’t actually appear on the Crusader Kings 2 map. Instead, it will be an off-map power that can be traded with, negotiated with, and fought. The reason for this is simple: Crusader Kings 2 is now so large and complex a game, Paradox can’t add a new region to the game without making everything slow down horribly. The team learned this the hard way, game director Henrik Fåhraeus tells us: “We added India as part of a free patch and that slowed down the game quite a bit. People weren’t too happy. We’ve now got the game back up to speed with optimisations, but to add one more chunk of the map would slow down the game significantly, so we decided on a compromise – add China without really adding China.”
Being friends with China can bring many gifts
While off-map, China can impact your kingdom significantly by expanding your court. If you can get into China’s good graces, there there are a number of boons you can request off your Eastern ally.
A Chinese court physician will keep your family healthy – Chinese medicine was far beyond what the West had to offer at the time; a siege engineer will make your armies more efficient in breaking through castle defences; strategists, scholar bureaucrats, and master engineers all buff your ability to rule. It’s not just people either, as you can get favoured status on the Silk Road – which increases your trade income – ask China to invade one of your enemies, or seek out an Imperial marriage (which also nets you a regiment of royal guard).
To get in with the Chinese, you can offer them gold, or more effectively a eunuch or a concubine. Though that does mean giving up a close, marriageable family member.
China may not be on the map but it can fuck you up
If you get on the wrong side of China it can mess you up, even if it’s not visible on the map. The country has control of the Protectorate to Pacify the West, an army that it can use to invade nations near its borders. Much like the Mongol invasions, these large armies will come sweeping through the lands, cutting down anyone who gets in their way.
Luckily, such a twist of fate is rare. Usually, China will be isolationist or open. You only need to worry when they change their mentality to expansionist.
New ways to wage war
As part of the expansion and the free patch that will launch alongside it, Crusader Kings 2 is getting a new set of casus belli (motives to start a war), which will please the more military-minded players.
On the smaller scale, if you’re playing as a count, you now have a claim to all the other territories under your duchy’s control. Similarly, emperors and kings now have claims on all the duchies within their realm.
A more exciting casus belli is the new liberate religion motive. If your faction shares a major religion with a minority group in another country you can go to war to install someone of that minority faction into power. You won’t then control that territory but you will have a friend in that corner of the world.
You can now wage an unjust war, too. It carries heavy penalties, but if you have the itch for invasion then you can now kick one off.
Finally, and this is a casus belli included in the free patch, you can start a war to free hostages. So, if you find your shores often raided by vikings and your daughter is taken as a concubine, then you can send an army after her – like a medieval version of the Trojan War.
It’s not the last expansion
Jade Dragon is Crusader Kings 2’s 14th expansion but the team aren’t done yet. “This is not the last expansion,” Fåhraeus says. “I have some ideas [and] we have a list of stuff we want to do.”
However, he also says, “Although the game is doing better than ever, we’re probably going to look at ending it. We’re looking at doing more stuff but I think it’s fair to say we’re getting there.”
Power level restoration skyrim 4. Though, now the game is at the point where Paradox can’t add new areas to the game or layer in more complex systems without slowing the game down, the team may be limited in what they can expand.
Ck2 Vassal Kings
So, I just bought CK2 today.
The most common piece of advice seemed to be 'start as someone in Ireland and learn the ropes!'. Fine I thought, and picked some guy with one region and one vassal. Three generations later, I'm in a position where my son and heir has an independent kingdom in the middle of Ireland while I got the rest, he happens to be a genius though and for some reasons he went from 100+ to negative 60 because he wants more land. Land which I can't grant him because he's independent. I don't know.
My guy, meanwhile, is a bit of an asshole, known as cruel and not very intelligent. I spend the next three small wars trying to get him killed so my son can take over and unite Ireland with the help of his dad's war chest. For some reason I also have Cornwall, I don't really know how or why. Succession/doling out titles is the most confusing system so far. I don't speak medieval.
ANYWAYS, HERE'S THE FUCKING CRAZY PART JESUS CHRIST so, I can't get my guy killed but a golden opportunity presents itself. A glorious crusade. I send him down there alone with all the men he could muster from Cornwall. Because fuck Cornwall.
321 men. They will join their lord in heaven and they will die in the mud outside of Jerusalem for the cause of a united Ireland.
I look for the papal stack and I think 'hey, maybe if he dies fighting with the pope I'll get some sort of bonus'. The fight is happening right outside Jerusalem and the Muslim stack is somewhere close to 12k and the Christians have 9k plus 321 brave souls from Cornwall. Somehow my fucking 'king' (he's not a king yet but it sounds better than 'my dude') manages to corner the leader of the caliphate in battle. He defeats him and imprisons him and this helps end the war immediately and my idiot king, the guy I wanted dead, instead ends up with all of Jerusalem even though he only sent 321 men. That's like 50 titles/lands/whatevers over limit and my court consists of 11 people and I have like 3 sons. There's a bishop that holds 20 separate titles and he's pretty stoked.
Just to give you an idea of how fucked up my kingdom is: I threw a huge tournament (because why not?) and as soon as it ended and people started to leave, bandits swooped down and raided every single entourage because there's more thieves guilds than toilets in the holy land at the moment.
Originally Posted by Monk
Since the game spawns courtiers each time you raise a retinue and you've gone on a conquer spree.. I don't even want to ask how big your court is. you can marry of those cortiers matrialineally its what i do all the time :P i keep my court around 20 constantly.
I'm actually surprised Paradox let the DLC go out with how unbalanced it makes the game. Though, I must admit, holding the emperor's crown now feels really fun. I enjoy the Alexiad start date as well, perhaps my new favorite to begin a game from.
If you’ve just picked up Crusader Kings 2 and can’t wait to get started, then it’s worth taking a look over my Beginner’s Guide to Crusader Kings 2. It goes over the most basic mechanics that will help you to create a successful first game, from which you can self-learn everything else you need to know.
Of course, the advice in that guide is very basic, and I intend to flesh it out with followup articles to help you make your way through a game without complete cluelessness at a later date. However, if you’ve already read it and just can’t wait to dive in (my definite recommendation) then you might be looking for advice on the best place to start.
Thanks to Crusader Kings 2’s character-based play, there are plenty of options open to you, from mighty Emperors down to measly provincial Counts and everything in between. Even without any of the DLC there are potentially hundreds of starting characters to choose from across a 400 year timespan, before even including non-Christians and 2 additional, pre-1066 start dates.
The game does have some options for you, including interesting historical bookmarks and the characters who are most relevant and enjoyable in that time period. However, a few of these are DLC-only, and for a beginner, I don’t really recommend any of them anyway. As strange as it sounds, the best place to start a Crusader Kings 2 game is not as one of the largest powers, but among some of the weaker options.
Starting as a Duke or Count
Starting as a king seems like a fun idea, but is fraught with peril. Any but the smallest of kingdoms will have to contend with a mess of vassals, each of whom will contend to bring about your downfall. Not to mention a historical setup that’s a horrible tangle to try and figure out. It’s fun in its own way, but similarly quite complicated, and a new player will have enough on their hands just trying to figure out the basics.
Starting as a Duke will give you the best ratio of power to responsibility. As a Duke you can have vassals, but your vassals will generally be small and weak. Added together they give you a strong force to fight with, but individually aren’t too much of a hassle. As an independent Duke you can often begin to absorb some of your smaller neighbours, or as a vassal to a king you have less to worry about from threats outside the realm. As you grow you can shape your realm into a system that works for you, rather than against you, and eventually become a king with a much better grasp on internal politics.
Starting as a count offers slightly more of a challenge than a Duke, but with similar rewards. You won’t have any real vassals until you can upgrade yourself to a duchy rank, which also makes it harder to absorb your neighbours. However, you’ll be shaping your entire realm from the ground up, so that you never have to deal with a vassal you didn’t choose yourself. A king who used to be a count will usually have a strong powerbase within their realm, and dominate internal politics. If you can make it that far of course.
Starting in the British Isles or the Iberian Peninsula
Regardless of which DLC you’ve got, I always think that the best place to start is in the British Isles or Iberian Peninsula (Spain). Particularly Ireland or one of the Iberian kings (yes, despite what I said about Dukes).
Ireland: Ireland is often colloquially referred to as “Beginner’s Island” thanks to its opportunities to learn the game relatively undisturbed. Right on the Western edge of the map, and fractured into plenty of minor powers, Ireland is safe from most outside threats. The only superpower you might have to contend with early on is England, and they have enough worries with the joint Norwegian/Norman invasion and subsequent unrest to bother you for a while. Not to mention, they don’t really care that much about conquering Ireland.
Starting as one of the Dukes in Ireland means that you can begin to fabricate claims on your neighbours and take their land, and the Casus Bellis you get from duchy titles will help speed the process along. Once you have about half of Ireland conquered you can form the kingdom and the rest tends to fall into place quite quickly. Go at your own pace and you’ll feel nicely in control for most of the start of the game. Once you’re a king, you’ll have a good powerbase to expand from and experiment with.
Complete the reCAPTCHA then submit the form to delist. InterServer Real Time Malware DetectionReal time suspected malware list as detected by InterServer's InterShield protection system.DNSRBL available at with lookups to rbl.interserver.netStatsInfo on 88.99.2.89Abuse DBID 722236First Seen 2017-12-26 03:16:16Last Seen 2019-06-26 07:18:39Reason 'modsecurity'Total Servers 51Total listings 135Error: Your IP may be getting blocked by our IPS due to a known string of false positive. Similares a war thunder.
Castile: I mention Castile as the foremost of the Iberian powers, partly because (spoilers) they end up winning, historically, and partly because they’re nice and central in the area. Unlike in Ireland, Castile does border an immediate threat in the form of various Muslim kingdoms and duchies, and has dynastic problems with neighbouring kingdoms too. View this as a blessing rather than a curse.
Having other kings of your dynasty around is a good way to build alliances, and potentially inherit their thrones too. You’ll have claims on your relative’s titles, especially if you keep intermarrying with them, and when they show weakness you can expand quickly by taking them over.
Meanwhile, your Muslim neighbours to the south offer you quite a nice Casus Belli in the form of Holy War, which allows you to take entire duchies at a time. Just watch out, because neighbouring Muslim dukes will join them in the defense of their titles, so be ready for a big war, or plan it out opportunistically.
Other than the Iberian Muslims and your dynastic neighbours, however, Castile has very little to worry about in 1066 and shouldn’t have too much trouble eventually securing the entire Iberian peninsula for themselves. Much like Ireland, once you’ve expanded a little, you should have a good powerbase to play and explore from.
Other Starting Options
France: France offers you plenty of choice when it comes to duchies, but relatively little options to expand. You’re surrounded by other, equally powerful dukes, so will need to be patient and opportunistic to grow your realm. If you want to try playing just as a vassal, however, France is a great place to start, with nothing much to do but play the diplomatic game.
Holy Roman Empire: Like France, the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) offers a player peace and relative stability as a vassal, without having to worry about outside threats. The HRE also offers a bit more opportunity to expand, with so many dukes and counts that you can marry or fabricate on your neighbours and almost always find someone weaker than you. Thanks to its start as an Elective Monarchy, it also offers you the chance to become Emperor for a while, just to experience the sort of headache that starting with a large title can give you.
England: Starting as Harold Godwinson is a huge mistake. If you hadn’t heard, he has a very short and turbulent reign. However, starting as an English duke can be a bit more interesting. Once the Norman and Norwegian invasions are over, and the dust has settled, internal politics becomes very interesting and, like Ireland, you have very little else to worry about. Set yourself up as a powerful Duke and rule the realm by proxy, or have a go at the crown yourself.
Hopefully that should be plenty to start with, and with the knowledge of how to get married and go to war you’ll be well on your way to creating a fruitful and long-lasting dynasty.
Keep your eyes peeled for my next post on the different Casus Bellis you can use to expand your realm, and how to get hold of them.
Advertisements
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |