CK2+ Hungary

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-04 10:56:42 UTC

Hungary: Part 01: 1000-1008: The Old Ways

Back when CK2 was 1.x I played CK2+ mod a lot. I got annoyed with it at some point, but let's give it another try. Initially playing with none of my usual fixes, but I might reapply them mid-campaign.

Goal is to create an empire for myself and reunify Christianity after the inevitable schism.

It's amazing how nerfed everything is:
• no de jure CB until medium crown authority
• no holy war CB until 100 piety and then only every 5 years
• no tributary CB (there's tributary threat decision)
• no demand conversion

I did some raiding, joined Hermetic Society, and got my piety wrecked so hard holy wars were completely impossible. On the other hand going back to Tengri was now an option! That doesn't change my long term plans to unify Christianity, it's just going to take a bit longer.

Apparently one thing the mod didn't nerf - and in fact made a lot stronger - are pagan CBs, so I used them to conquer Croatia, two Serbian dukes, and I'd get Transylvania if it wasn't half occupied in other wars.

My wife cheated on me, so I divorced her and married one of my concubines instead. I even got attacked by her lover and wounded when I confronted them.

Still only one daughter and no sons. Weirdly I'm at agnatic seniority, so my cousin will inherit. Another cousin worshiped pagan demons cult, got caught, and imprisoned, and eventually sacrificed to ancestors.

I got that event for +1 learning for -50 piety, and I got ambitious by another event, so my skills got crazy high - from starting decent 9/9/12/4/15 to 14/13/17/14/36!

Romans got duchy of Jerusalem in a holy war unlocking jihads, but so far there haven't been any.
#ck2

I mostly wanted to try 1000 start. It's not that different from 1066.


I had a choice of going high piety to get CB on Transylvania or going Tengri to get CBs on everyone.

Due to lack of demand conversion, realm is mixed Chalcedon / Tengri, but at least it's 90% Hungarian except for my claimant to Bohemia.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-04 15:13:11 UTC

Hungary: Part 02: 1008-1019: The Great Schism

Sunni Umayyad caliph of Andalusia called a jihad for Ghana of all places. Shia Fatimid caliph called a jihad for Punjab. Both failed. Lack of interest in Jerusalem and Anatolia suggests they're rightfully afraid of emperor of the Romans.

In 1010 Christianity split, with very few outside Roman Empire taking Orthodox side.

I became Magus of Hermetic Society and wrote a Magnum Opus. With at one point 49 learning, I'm not just the most learned person in the world, possibly even in history of the world.

Roman Emperor decided to break alliance with me out of nowhere, and since vast majority of my peasants were Catholic, I agreed to a missionary's suggestion and got baptized second time.

By the way that bastard Roman Emperor is married to my sister, but he's celibate! He'd rather see his nephew inherit than do his duty with Odola! Well, at least his nephew will marry my daughter, so we might restore our good relations soon.

I got wounded second time, during a hunt. It even got infected. I'm not seeing any medical decisions or events. Are they missing?

Sweden was preparing invasion on me, but last minute it mysteriously disappeared.
#ck2

I already miss abolish title CB. Blobs everywhere, and no good way to break them.

There are some tribal Baltic lands, but tribal to feudal conversion is very expensive in the mod, so no rush to get that - instead I just asked them to pay tribute.

Strategos of Athens is nephew of the emperor and the heir, so alliance will be reestablished when emperor dies.


No idea who the Qarmatians even are, but my genius wife is one. With Kiev and Georgia going Catholic, Orthodox is doing poorly.

Apparently any emperor can mend the schism, so if I want to do so, I'll need to create empire first. It's crazy expensive compared with my income.

Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-05 11:36:42 UTC

Hungary: Part 03: 1019-1026: King Balint the Eagle

I got ambition to befriend the pope, and sent two of my daughters as wards to improve our relations. Then my popefriend died, and I became a drunkard in grief. Next pope of course hated me, as most popes do.

Chrisitanity kept fragmenting with France going Waldensian and Pechenegs going Iconoclast (for a generation).

At least Holy Romans convinced Sweden to go Catholic by armed persuation.

Heir to Roman Empire Pothos was betrothed to his 17 year older regent lowborn Demetra. Good for her, taking initiative like that! None of that worked anyway, as faction managed to remove both and install another family member.

And then at age of 51 I died, leaving the throne to somewhat distant relative Balint the Eagle (Istvan's cousin's son), who at 22 is the oldest living member of the dynasty.

Balint an 4/20/14/1/1 is good at nothing except fighting and maybe OK at administration. He's also follower of the old ways.

It's only appropriate - if drinking too much after his friend pope died killed Istvan, maybe the Old Gods wanted Hungary to return to the Old Faith?
#ck2

CK2+ removes a lot of war stuff as obviously OP, but doesn't add new peace time mechanics, so it's not as exciting as it could be.

Post 4 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-06 11:22:04 UTC

Hungary: Part 04: 1026-1033: The Great Invasion

The rightful Emperor of the Romans Romanos, who also happened to be married to late king Istvan's daughter Erika, got overthrown by his younger brother Gennadios.

This was unacceptable! To respect memory of king Istvan, Gannadios needs to be punished!

I thought I'd get some mercs for it, but like everything else they got nerfed. What about marriage alliances? Nope, all the best candidates have this bullshit unexplained "no because political concerns" modifier that plagued the game since its inception.

Well, I gathered allies:

• my 22k troops
• Shia Fatimid Caliph of Egypt - 28k troops - it took 200 gold, and level-3 lance The Piercer
• King Aethelraed of England - 34k troops - took serious money
• King Alfonso of Leon - 15k troops - took Saint's Fingerbone and serious money
• King Marmure Macr Ailpin of Scotland - took serious money and engraved sword
• Shan Suren the Hammer of Persia - 7k troops - he overthrew Seljuk Turks
• my 3 Baltic tributaries with about 1k each

Against Gennadios' 20k.

It might seem like an overkill, but it's one of those wars where 100% warscore means little and I need to occupy what I want to take.

During the war my alliances with Leon, England, and Egypt ended. This shit was always in the game, but Reaper's Due made it really really annoying.

My vassals were super bitchy as well, and even sent me ultimatum for one of my counties, which I actually accepted since I was about to get a lot of new ones.

In final days of the invasion I even agreed to convert to Catholic as most of my vassals are Catholic.

Apparently there's just one problem here with my plan to mend the schism:

• taking Constantinople in invasion made Ecumenical Patriarch unlanded and destroyed the title
• it's impossible to mend the schism unless Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch both exists - in vanilla these titles persist even unlanded, but apparently not here
• I think I need to be Orthodox to recreate Patriarchy

So basically I need to usurp Byzantine Empire and go Orthodox if I want to mend the damn schism. Or do some serious schenanigans.
#ck2

Fully occupying everything was long and painful. Greece as target doesn't need to be occupied, I'll get unoccupied counties in Greece as vassals.


It took some debugging to figure out, but apparently the only way to mend the schism involves usurping the title of Roman Empire on the way.

Either that or returning Constantinople to some emperor-tier Orthodox character to recreate Ecumetical Patriarch, but then it might get destroyed somehow anyway. Oh well, every game turns into Roman Empire game I guess.

Post 5 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-07 15:06:14 UTC

Hungary: Part 05: 1033-1038: Emperor of the Romans

Handing out titles was fairly tedious, and the whole transition also ran into a bunch of bugs with me somehow becoming "antipope" to the Ecumenical Patriarch, so I had to fix a few things by console.

The game also bugged out and decided to consider everybody my ally. Restart fixed it briefly, but I got it the second time, with everybody joining most ridiculous wars.

I tried to be serious about my new faith - I restored ecumenical patriarchate, gave patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch a duchy worth of lands each, joined Community of Saint Basil, and got second coronation ceremony by Ecumenical Patriarch. When I found myself at peace I even went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Giving out titles I prioritized my extended family, and embrace multiculturalism, so in the end we have:

• Hungarians of all faiths
• Orthodox Greeks - including former emperor Romanos Makedon
• Catholic Czech Premyslids
• Orthodox Serbian merchant republic (and two more merchant republics coming)
• two patriarch-held duchies
• late king Istvans' Qarmatian Bedouin wife holding one county
• subjugated Paulician Armenians, Orthodox Longobards, Wallachians, Pechenegs, Croatians, and who knows what else

As long as they don't rebel, it will be fine.

The mod apparently has imperial decadence mechanic, which stands at 29%, which every % causing penalties. The "easy" solution to it is winning holy and de jure war, so I might just as well do so! Unfortunately unlike vanilla Muslim decadence, every won war reduces it by only 1%. 11 wars later I got it down to 18%.

The mod also has naval attrition, which I instantly disabled, as that leads to much more tedious microing of armies than I can deal with.

Pope declared successful crusade for Sicily against some minor Sunni emir, which makes more sense than caliphs' failed jihads against Punjab and Ghana.

#ck2

We're falling? This is some ridiculous slander! Jerusalem is in good Christian hands for first time in centuries. Meanwhile in the West France is ruled by Waldensian king, how about you do something about that?

Somehow Sicily became independent and switched Shia to Sunni, becoming easy target, so pope's silliness paid off. I doubt he'd be able to win against the caliph.


I tried to cleanup borders a bit, but Khazaria war bugged out and one of counties in target duchy wasn't transferred to me.

Vanilla-levels attrition in Syrian deserts were really brutal. I played with attrition modded down to sensible levels last few times, so this is weird.

At one point sultan of Syria tried to ambushed my attritioned army, so I disbanded them in enemy territory (losing half) and reraised, just to not give them free warscore.

Post 6 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-07 19:42:47 UTC

Hungary: Part 06: 1038-1047: War For Saxony

I held a grand tournament to reduce imperial decadence even more. A bunch of people got maimed, somehow that help bureaucracy work more efficiently.

Fake Roman Empire to the West needed dismantling, so I decided to help Buchard Billung, who convincingly argued that he's the rightful king of Saxony. Him accepting Orthodox faith was a good argument as well.

Unfortunately just 3 years later fake Roman Emperor attacked Saxony with another claimant - and because Saxony is he jure Fake Roman Empire, mod allowed him to be his vassal ignoring the general rule against it. I even joined Saxony's war, but before I could ship my troops he got captured and surrendered.

That feels like some serious bullshit. If all Fake Roman Emperor needs to reverse my progress is one lucky battle, and that's my best CB, what can I even do? There's a lot of hoops needed to do even one duchy at a time.

Fatimid line of Shia Caliph died out, replaced by Rassid line, supposedly distant descendants of caliph Ali. I had to show the new caliphs who's really in charge, so I moved one duchy closer to Alexandria.

The Community of Saint Basil quests turned dark, as I attempted to steal an icon, got caught, and killed the witness to escape.

I got attacked by adventurer with 74k attrition-troop troops. Seriously mod? It wasn't too bad, but mostly because I disabled naval attrition earlier.

I managed to reach the ends of Imperial Subjugation CB, getting crusader king of Sicily as a vassal. Not sure why I can't subjugate those last 2 OPM dukes in de jure Sicily, maybe because they have titular republic titles?

I'm not sure what to do next. There's really shortage of ways to mess with other countries.
#ck2

God welcomed the new caliph with a plague.


Turns out I was wrong and I had to bribe witness with buckets of money later.

Post 7 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-08 09:48:01 UTC

Hungary: Part 07: 1047: Irge the Wolf

So I thought about alternative ways to mess up with the Fake Roman Empire. I did some testing, had a fancy plan, but it turns out my testing was faulty.

Just as "Byzantine Empire" is religion-locked to Orthodox (or heresy; or Chalcedonian pre-schism), "Holy Roman Empire" is religion-locked to Catholic (or heresy; or Chalcedonian pre-schism).

I initially thought these empires would just use cosmetic tags, but they don't - they're brand new empires, and come with zero de jure territory. So if I force them to become simply Germany, then I can break them down into pieces without any risk of reassembly.

In tests there wasn't even a popup asking to convert, which was the key to the plan, but it was actually because character I tested on was zealous - and my original plan wouldn't have worked (depending on AI random choices).

So I invited two male claimants, and tried to convince them to convert, but neither bought it, mostly due to maxed out religious authority of the Catholics.

Then I found Irge the Wolf - a Khazar Jewish women with weak claim. Previous Fake Roman Emperor sent his daughter to marry Khazar khagan. She was just what the Germans needed - cruel lunatic drunkard with depression and great pox. I'm not even sure why I could press her claim since it was agnatic, and you can't press female claimants on agnatic titles, but maybe agnatic elective allows that?

I couldn't just wait with such opportunity, even if truce breaking cost me half my prestige, -5 diplomacy for 10 years, and -25 with all Christian rulers.

I captured Fake Roman Emperor in a big battle, got Irge on the throne, and instead of flipping to Germany as in my tests, the whole empire just evaporated with her keeping just one county. WTF?

OK, so back to more tests:
• any non-zealous pagan or Christian claimant will get popup asking to go Catholic, so the war would probably be futile
• zealous claimant wouldn't get a popup, but there's no way I'd be able to convert them to Orthodox
• so I didn't know it, but I had to find someone who was naturally either non-Christian non-Pagan (like Igre), or non-Catholic and zealous, or hope they'll choose the right option (content characters are more likely to do so)

And when they don't convert:
• if claimant is German culture, of any non-Catholic religion, it leads to Germany (what I thought would happen)
• if claimant is not German but male, it leads to custom empire based on capital (like for example Franconia)
• if claimant is Khazar, Jewish, and female, somehow the whole thing imploded.

I'm not even sure why. The files say nothing about gender requirements. It seems like a serious case of mod trying way too hard, and messing up worse than vanilla. Oh well, I'll take it.
#ck2

Former emperor is Grand Duke of Swabia in own name (agnatic gavelkind, Ludolfinger).
There's also:
• Archduke of Austria (agnatic elective, Ludolfinger)
• Grand Duke of Tuscany (agnatic-cognatic primo, di Canossa)
• Grand Duke of Saxony (agnatic primo, Billung)
• king of Arles (agnatic primo, Welf)
• and Shiltanah Irge the Wolf (confused by what just happened)

Post 8 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-08 17:48:50 UTC

Hungary: Part 08: 1047-1057: The Great Schism Mended

The mod really needs some kind of icon for characters who are "busy", as that blocks half the interactions, and everybody's busy all the damn time! Also it should say why someone is busy, because most of the time I have no idea whatsoever.

Irge lost her throne is less than a year. There really needs to be some mechanics to prevent usurpers from losing their titles immediately. The mod actually prevents any war by or against crusader kings for 10 years for that reason.

Grand dukes and archdukes soon named themselves kings. I tried to have good relations with all of them, but that was not to be.

I allied Hermann of Saxony who replaced my claimant Buchard. King of Swabia Otto - same one who installed Hermann before - decided to attack him, and I had to defend Hermann now. They white peaced, and soon Hermann got overthrown by faction who installed Bernhard.

Otto instantly declared war on Bernhard, so I had to ally Bernhard and this time help him win, making Otto lose his claims.

I ended up in an alliance with Saxony and Austria, non-aggression pact with Arles.

I fabricated very expensive claim on Latium and setup a patriarch there too. The only patriach without own duchy is one of Constantinople, for obvious reasons.

I did another fabrication on Venice, framed king of Sicily for treason to get his title and press remaining county claims. Erika, former Roman basilissa, asked me to press her claim on duchy of Verona, and I can't refuse my family.

Rassid caliph called a jihad on Jerusalem against me. I responded by another round of cleanup against Sunni and Shia minors and even captured one of Swords of Mohammad. Then I took advantage of rebellions against the caliph and high caliph mortality to seize most of North African coast.

This meant I could finally call a general council of the church to settle the differences between Latin and Greek Rites.

Most rulers converted, and among the peasants the ratio is 542 to 129, as well as 44 counties with peasants believing in more exotic variants.
#ck2

Another crazy big adventurer. My army is as big as supply limit allows, and there's no province with higher supply limit anywhere.


Before the council Pope had 3x as many followers as the Patriarchs. Even within the Roman Empire it was about even split.


There are still many heretics left and we'll have to deal with them. Not sure what I should do with East African Copts - lack of Suez Canal makes it fairly difficult.

Post 9 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-09 12:51:43 UTC

Hungary: Part 09: 1057-1066: 66 Year Prequel

New Shia caliphal dynasty happened, splitting Egypt and Arabia, and getting both pushed even further.

Uncle of Sunni Umayyad caliph of Andalusia was willing to accept Jesus, so I pressed his claim. It wouldn't break the caliphate, but it would mess with them a bit. It doesn't look like he's going to last long.

My son got claim on Ireland, which I tried pressing, but by the time my ships arrived he unfortunately died. Somehow I inherited that claim, and could press it later. I wasn't too sure about it, but since queen of Ireland was a heretic, it had to be done.

Succession was a controversial matter.
• For seniority, two oldest dynasty members were Abel, a Czech Catholic, and a kinslayer known as "Tamas, Son of Lucifer"
• 1st son son Gergely died in suspicious circumstances
• 2nd son Vaszoly was blinded zealous Tengri
• 3rd son Tascony was zealous Catholic
• 4th son Bonuslo was a Greek, and -10 tyrant (which is a stupid modifier, and vanilla system where it's applies to your vassals at a time for stort time not to everybody forever is way better)
• 5th son Imre, born in purple, died in battle
• 6th son Tvrdoslav was a bastard and raised as a Croatian

Not like my nephews where that much better. My best of available choices is content of all things.

Oh and speaking of stupid things the mod does, mending the schism doesn't make holy orders join the parent religion.
#ck2

Post 10 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-09 16:23:19 UTC

Hungary: Part 10: 1066-1070: Emperor Boldizsar

Emperor Balint the Saint died natural death at age of 67. In his last days he led campaigns in Ireland, France, and Caucasus; as well as fighting adventurer invasion.

Disappointed by his sons, he nominated his nephew Boldizsar as despot and his heir. Boldizsar at 7/9/12/6/8 might not be the most amazing option, but the alternatives were: Tengri, Greek, bastard, or children.

Kingdom of Hungary by laws of agnatic seniority fell to oldest male member of Arpad dynasty, who's unfortunately zealous Tengri.

Two Khazar counties were lost to the nomads.

Imperial decadence apparently increases every succession, and is now at 12, but it probably won't last too long.

So goals for now are:
• Restore borders of Justinian the Great - Italy, North Africa, and Spain
• Enforce (Council of) Chalcedon - merges Miaphysites - requires Aksum (Abyssinia) and Erchmiadzin (Armenia, just needs replacing my heretic vassal). Aksum is pretty far.
• Enforce (Council of) Ephesus - merges Nestorians - requires Baghdad (Mesopotamia) and Roudehen (Persia)
• Rename the Roman Empire to Roman Empire, unlocking new CBs - requires Genoa and Ferrara
• Remove Catholic kings - Azerbaijan, Leon, Norway, Pampalona, Wales
• remove Coptic kings - Abyssinia, Nubia
• Shockingly number of Catholic peasants actually increased since Council of Constantinople - not easily 100%able, but reduce their numbers
• remove both caliphates
#ck2

Post 11 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-10 23:20:59 UTC

Hungary: Part 11: 1070-1081: The Tengri Civil War

I deleted all the "character is busy" stuff from the mod, and everything is instantly much nicer.

After succession I noticed that there's holy war timer. It doesn't apply to rulers with very high piety, so emperor Balint the Saint never had to deal with it. After first batch of holy wars I got to that high piety level anyway, so I'll probably forget it until next succession.

Ecumenical Patriach officially declared Emperor Balint a Saint, in spite of Balint's policy of family before faith.

I did some minor holy warring and destroyed heretic kings of Pampalona and Wales. I convinced by Tengri son to go Orthodox, so now he's the heir - but I still went seduction focus for some backup sons. This time only seducing Orthodox Hungarian women.

I got attacked by a 72k adventurer. I got Brave staying to defend Constantinople from them.

I took part in the tournament, but didn't achieve much.

My cousin Vaszoly inherited Hungary as oldest dynasty member, and decided that this means he can restore the old ways. That was seriously too much so I revoked his kingdom title, and started proper religious unity enforcement, family or no family. This lead to 1.x style rebellion without temporary title.

Apparently whichever code the mod resurrected for that is totally broken, and basically my occupations count for nothing while theirs count for a shitton (like about 0.5% vs 6% per barony). Battles counted for very little as well, and there was no ticking warscore either way. I was halfway through fully sieging every rebel holding when I captured rebellion leader in a battle.

It's so broken winning the war won't even imprison traitors.

Somehow Orthodox sultan of Andalusia managed to crush rebels, peasants, and adventurers, and stay on the throne. Sadly his heir is Sunni, and I failed to convert him.

I have another civil war ahead, as there's a bunch of infidels left, led by patriarch of Jerusalem who somehow went Catholic.

And after all that I'm still somehow content.
#ck2

That's a nasty doomstack marching from Kiev. Pretty much the only strategy against such is to rely on -99% warscore cap from sieges (introduced just a few patches ago).

Just letting them siege, unsiege when it's safe, and refuse battle until my troops slowly gather.

Without the cap the only way would be to gather everyone a year in advance. Of course it's not a problem in vanilla where adventurers are capped at 30k, which is not enough to assault everything they want.


Rebel rainbow. They weren't even that strong, they just ignored usual warscore rules.

Post 12 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-11 22:17:32 UTC

Hungary: Part 12: 1081-1083: Child Emperor Gergely

Seniority succession system was more appropriate for our nomad past than for our civilized times, and it led to the civil war. Death of my only adult son to rabbies placed my Tengri cousin who caused this mess next in line, so I gathered all vassals and officially proclaimed primogeniture as succession system, no matter if the successor is underage.

All infidel direct vassals converted or surrendered their titles without a fight except for one rebellious count. There's still a handful on indirect vassals, but the empire is finally approaching religious unity.

I joined Hermetic Society to maybe challenge myself a bit.

I got into wars in Middle East, and I had enough ports on the other side of Sinai to reembark troops there. Not many yet.

And in the end, I got dysentery and died, leaving the empire to 10 year old son Gergely. Who's on etiquette focus, which is probably the worst possible of all.

If this damn game set me as guardian of all my children I could avoid this stupidity, but that was a minimod I wrote. Perhaps I should add it for the future.

Boldizsar ruled for just 13 years, half wasted fighting pagan rebels and adventurers, and his legacy is nowhere near as impressive as Balint the Saint's 37 year reign - it's mostly reforming the half pagan realm into something resembling the Orthodox empire it claims to be.
#ck2

Indian Ocean fleet isn't huge and reembarkation is hassle, but it's much better than walking and makes the inevitable conquest of Mecca easy.

One of my vassals conquered that duchy on way to Mecca, I sent looters against caliph to become hostile and destroy caliph's army. It's pretty much my favourite cheesy trick.


I'm mostly angry at that etiquette focus. It feels like bad design that they can't be changed. And as usual regent is not who I've designated.

Both of these problems I fixed with my minimods.

Post 13 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-12 12:21:43 UTC

Hungary: Part 13: 1083-1090: Council of Negev

I used console commands to replace etiquete focus with struggle (most of the damage has been done) and to try making my designated regent into a regent, but that fix no longer seems to work. Oh well, I guess I'll suffer 6 years of wrong regent.

For some reason my crown authority went from medium to low again without any message, and I can't even find event which does it in the files. Mod's transparency is overall awful.

Even more shitty was that mod decided to autoassign guardians for various children in my court, and a few flipped to Tengri.

Lombard-culture liberatian of Italy revolt revolted against Italian-culture kingdom of Tuscany, unlanded everyone there, so suddently I could invite newly unlanded claimant to Genoa and press his claim. Italy also bugged out a bit and bishops are now top tier in nearly every county.

After that it was two de jure county claims against France (55k troops) and Swabia (10k troops) and I could rename Roman Empire on my 16th birthday.

And I married princess Prissilla of Nubia, we became lovers, and I pressed her claim to Nubia. It won't do my dynasty much good as those barbarians sill use agnatic seniority.

Sunni Caliph declared war on me. Not a proper jihad, just some county claim on his courtier, presumably by favor.

As soon as I had a moment of peace I called ecumenical council of Negev to finally resolve issue of Nestorianism - lord mayor of Socotra, the only Nestorian ruler, didn't seem terribly moved by the council.

Heretic king of Azerbaijan lost his title while I was busy elsewhere, leaving just Leon and Norway/Denmark.

As for minor things, there's option after every rebellion to teach locals a lesson. That costs permanent stacking -10 tyrrany penalty, cruel, and wroth, for 50% chance of converting one province. Like wtf? Vanilla culture conversion is insanely slow, and mod nerfs it even harder.

Renaming (Eastern) Roman Empire to (Complete) Roman Empire mostly unlocks duchy-level CBs on Western Europe.


So many soldiers died in Persian to make this possible, and that one mayor and his peasants ignored the council anyway.

Post 14 - Originally published on Google+ on 2017-08-14 18:51:19 UTC

Hungary: Part 14: 1090-1099: Triumph of the True Faith

I pressed Orthodox claimants for Denmark, Abyssinia, and Arabia.

My claimant to Denmark decided to establish cadet branch of Arpad dynasty, whatever that means. I let him be independent in this remote cold place.

For Arabia, he was without living sons and with very old wife, so I tried to deal with this problem so he can remarry, but it didn't work, and somehow he was offended by my efforts.

Somehow an Orthodox king inherited Norway as well. Then Norway got lost to true faith, so I pressed another claimant.

That means Norway, Nubia, Abyssinia, Arabia, and Andalusia all have Orthodox rulers with infidel heirs. That's the most religiously unstable situation I've ever seen. It's going to be a bit of effort to keep those realms in true faith, but it's really inevitable.

In a crazy turn of events patriach of Antioch - who's religious head in his patriarchate - somehow got excommunicated. Guys, don't even try to setup another schism!

Rudolf Welf of Arles attacked me (presumably forced by favor), didn't have ransom ready when he got captured, so I got him stoned to death, and then his son Reinhard got hanged for good measure.

After that I got attacked by 3 other tiny AIs in a row. Like, what's up with that suddenly?

Well, I'd say the campaign is won:
• The Schism is mended (Copts will be included next generation)
• There are no heretic kings of any kind left (even if it will probably require a few more interventions to fix any future lapses)
• both caliphs are vassals of Orthodox kings
• Roman borders of Justinian the Great are restored (not counting some minor border gore)
• heretic peasants are mostly converted

Overall CK2+ mod impressions:
• I really like its empire/kingdom system, except locking titles to religions should probably be just cosmetic, as it leads to blow ups. No idea why I can usurp titles I can't hold, that's really weird.
• The busy bug and HRE disappearance bugs were pretty major. There was also a bunch of minor issues.
• There's a lot of things which are really nontransparent and there's not even a wiki for them. Even reading files didn't help as they're much more complex than vanilla.
• New content like extra ambitions was nice, but there could really be even more of it
• Some things it nerfed really deserved it, but it's pretty random - some things like invasion CB really deserved a nerf (so it doesn't get anything outside target kingdom)
• Culture conversion, nearly nonexistent in vanilla, got nerfed even harder. Seriously?
• 1000 bookmark was just different enough from 1066 bookmark without being too extreme.
#ck2

The whole cadet branch is silly, so I let him go in his tiny frozen kingdom.


Justinian would be proud.

Bonus Post 15 - CK2+ mod impressions from a quick Hungary into Roman Empire campaign - Originally posted reddit

I played a quick Hungary into Roman Empire campaign 1000-1099. I thought it would last longer, but got too powerful very quickly without even excessive cheese.

I played the mod ages ago, but it changed pretty much completely since then.

Here are some impressions and suggestions.

Empire system:

• I really like its empire/kingdom system, where nothing is de jure except two actually existing empires
• But please call it "Eastern Roman Empire" or something not the silly "Byzantine Empire", like seriously, the name hurts my eyes
• Hard religion-locking of empires leads to bugs.
• Creating kingdoms/empires and holding empires is highly restricted, but there's pretty much no limits to usurping whatever I feel like. Why should I be able to usurp something I can't hold, or usurp while at truce with holder, all at very low cost?
• I was saving buckets of money to turn Hungary into 3-kingdoms and then into custom empire, and then I noticed I can usurp Byzantine Empire just like that.

New content:
• 1000 bookmark was just different enough from 1066 bookmark without being too extreme. Amazing feature!
• New ambitions are definitely great.
• Ability to mend schism with Paulicians and Miaphysites is amazing!

Balance:
• Mod nerfs so much, so it's really weird that it left the most overpowered invasion CB like in vanilla - it really ought to limit it to one de jure kingdom, not to everything occupied
• Demand conversion nerf was much needed, but it made it so hard to do "you convert, I press your claim to that kingdom" deal.
• As far as I can tell, massive plotting nerfs mean that even someone hated by literally everybody in the realm with 10000% plot power still has 50% chance of surviving, as there's only one try, and then if it gets revealed it's all over. This feels really silly.
• The whole eternal and inheritable tyrant / dishonorable system is really silly. Vanilla system where it only affects vassals at a time and everybody gets over it after a while is much better.
• I seriously disagree with naval attrition. It's just such a hassle to gather levies by land (supposedly next patch has rally points).
• Uncapped adventurers with 100k attrition-free troops are extremely silly. If it wasn't for 99% warscore cap without major battles there'd often be no way to win this, as they can assault 100% worth of provinces before you can even gather the troops - and naval attrition removes the most natural counter to them. If mod wants them uncapped they should suffer like half-attrition at least. (vanilla has hard 30k cap)

Bugs:
• There's this game breaking bug with everybody being busy all the time I mentioned before.
• I pressed Khazar princess (Jewish Tengri) claim to HRE, and it just disappeared, presumably due to some bug in scripts. Wouldn't cosmetic tags be enough to handle that? Or at least always make it turn into Germany regardless of controller's religion.
• When I was trying to revoke infidel titles I got those 1.x style revolts without temporary titles. It's OK, except it broke warscore from sieging. Like I got 0.5%/holding while they got 7%/holding.

Transparency:
• There's a big problem with mechanics not being transparent. Like I still have no idea why my crown authority went from medium to low every succession; or why I can ask for tribute only sometimes.
• I tried reading files, but they're much more complex than vanilla files, so it only sometimes answered my questions.
• There really ought to be some wiki for at least major mechanics.

Cultures:
• Vanilla cultures already convert way too slow, and mod decided to nerf that even harder. I really disagree with this. If cultures converted as slow as in the mod, Europe would be mostly Avars, Gepids, Pechenegs, Vandals, Goths, Wends etc. in 2017. I think I culture converted one province in a century. This needs huge increase (with game rules if necessary).
• Even worse, my vassals (including dynasty members) go native all the time. Big problem is that I can't ask them to appoint guardian and go heritage focus on their children even on best opinion - by the time they hit 6th birthday they instantly choose focus and guardian and their focus can't be changed later. As a result my dynasty was every possible culture in two generations.
• This could probably be helped if I could ask to assign guardian before 6th birthday (which is totally fine, just won't do anything until then), and also ask to change focus to heritage or faith (there's option like that in vanilla, what happened to it?).
• Mod has option to use this ridiculous EU4-style system of German and Italian microcultures. It's possible to turn it off, but some microculture characters still spawn. Probably missing events to clean this up.
• After unsuccessful peasant revolt there's option to try converting one province. 50% chance for one province, at cost of -10 eternal tyranny, cruel, wroth, and other penalties. Like that's a ridiculous rate.