Anyone read this genius level AAR? Whole Europe, Persia and India conquered in 9 years. Beautiful sea of blue in page 5. Reminds me of that genius player in EUIV, the one which he used the Ryuku Islands to conquer the whole world.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?776096-Let-s-Break-CK2-for-World-Conquest&s=bf921e07141a93c4446befac85caa67f

And here I am struggling with succession laws. :)

So another 300 years past, all the way to the end date of CK2 for my Wessex Ironman campaign, much more aggressive this time but still with the good old fabricate claims, I'm not too good at playing the marriage claim game. Destroyed western France through wars, pincer attacking them with Mid Francia as ally. Inherited Eastern Francia after the 2nd crusade which I did not join but I joined the first crusade where I was top contributor but did not get anything then. I've been fighting Aquitaine and Mid Francia since then. Destroyed Aquitaine, usurped Mid Francia and then they became Burgundy.

http://oi59.tinypic.com/34pcrno.jpg

Taking revenge on hosts is ever so sweet. Sweet revenge for all the crap they gave me at the start and early years. I can almost hear my Emperor saying: "So you have the same 30k troops? Nice, 30k is just part of my army now" :)
http://oi58.tinypic.com/ei8q3d.jpg

Elective succession gave me a heart attack few times in the campaign. Once I even lost the Empire title to a vassal but luckily kept the Kingdom of England title. So I ended up a King after being an Emperor for so long. Had to start a faction to get Emperor/Empress title back and since I had 170% army strength compared to the vassal Emperor, he quietly gave me back the title. Jumped on the opportunity for high crown authority and changed to Agnatic-Cognatic Primogeniture immediately after it's approved, the best succession law ever. Didn't have to worry about succession anymore but it came too late in my game. Played this campaign with the intention of importing the saved game to EUIV. And here's what it looks like in EUIV:

http://oi62.tinypic.com/5z1kk2.jpg

In CK2, you had to worry about asshole vassals but you don't have vassals in EUIV. In EUIV however, coalitions against you are even more scary and you can start a world war if you piss off the right people. Also the scariest things in EUIV are mighty BBB aka France and Austria. And since France, Austria and the HRE don't exist in my saved game, coupled with English massive naval force and bonuses, I'm gonna laugh all the way to the bank. :) I checked my Land Forcelimits are twice the next rival. So hopefully I get an easy time in my continued adventure in EUIV.

God damn it. All my careful planning, I had a genius heir with great stats all lined up for when my current ruler died.. then, out of the blue two of my vassals voted someone else as heir and within seconds my Queen died and this random moron inherited Ireland! Of course Wales was inherited by my proper heir, so I've lost that, and it promptly splintered into separate kingdoms, one of which was conquered by the English...

Is there anyway to get my king killed? I keep holding grand hunts and hoping to get a random event which leads to his death (or maiming which might make him die quicker...)

I might just start another game now that I know how everything works, it's too difficult too expand from my current position because England has twice my military might and Scotland is part of the (massive) HRE (120k + troops)....

Damn this game...

I don't know if it's been talked about before in this thread but I found a thread, on the steam forum I think some time ago where people listed the hilarious lives of the people in their royal family trees. It was comedy gold.
Unfortunately since it was some time ago I don't have a link or anything.

Don't use Elective anymore. Not sure what they changed for Elective, but it's sure much harder as hell for them to vote your chosen heir as compared to last time. You can try making your vassals like you but I'm not sure if it does anything. Elective is good with non-ironman games and with the direct assassination option. The way Elective is able to screw at you now, I'm not even sure it's better than Gavelkind. Heck, I like mentioned in my above post, I lost my Empire of Britannia title to a vassal and got demoted to Queen instead of Empress. Always check the title lost on succession, always make sure your most powerful title goes to your direct heir (which might change thanks to elective, kinda sucks lol, you have to try to be lucky).Go Primogeniture, your eldest son/grandson will get the titles, sad thing is that they might be morons but at least you don't have to worry about succession losses. I hate the way I have the most power and then can only secure 1 vote for my heir. Or maybe I'm just a moron and that there's a good way to win at elections.

Put your king to lead any army in the centre and charge him against hopeless odds, make sure you have enough to fight a decently length battle but make sure you lose. I'm not sure if maimed makes a king die faster, they get reduced health yep but I got a maimed king that lived till 70+, turns out he's one of my greatest kings or maybe he's just lucky. Put a skillful Spymaster on the council and make sure he hates you, give him the Court Jester title and make fun of his fat wife and his mother every now and again.

U can try start a faction to depose of the current English king? Replay in the Old Gods scenerio? Make sure the HRE don't form. hehe. Not even my whole British Empire now has the chance to take on 120k troops, I only have 80K-90K total lol, maybe with mercs and my 5K gold with some careful bait maneuvering then yeah. Hey, you want revenge on the the HRE, go Mongols and utterly crush them with the 160k troops given to you. Maybe 300k if you call in the Ilkhanate. Burn and plunder every city and make sure the women lament, like a good old Mongol.

I've been reading and enjoying that, thanks for the link. So many great AARs on the paradox forums. I really need to stop putzing around and finish editing my next LP video.

Of course... I had read that they'd changed elective but completely forgot. I think my Irish play through is buggered so I'll probably start again. I haven't got any DLC so it will just be a vanilla game.

How do you start factions? I had been looking at ways to destabilise my neighbours but couldn't see anything other than plotting to kill their rulers.

I might start in Italy and try form the Kingdom of Italy.

In the factions tab. If you're the highest ruler, you'll only get to see factions that are against you. If someone is above you, like if you're a duke and you have a king, you get to see the start faction option.

Ah, I see. I was always the top of my Kingdom so I would never have seen the option.

I made an attempt to play as an Italian Duke but was unable to change off gavelkind before I died, and then I was invaded by two different islamic states and one of my neighbours...

So I started again as the King of Denmark, which was going well until the game crashed... :(

Bah!

I have continued with my Danish play through and so far so good. I conquered some random pagan cheiftain's lands to the south (part of the Poland, Obl something or other?) after being about 80% warscore down... I forgot about the whole pagan defence bonus and got my armies (and those of my allies) trounced completely. But by luck my enemies left their land and came into Denmark where I then crushed them with the aid of my Sicilian Allies (I married one of my many many brothers to a Sicilian Princess) and went from -80% to 100% warscore (I think I captured their chief) and conquered their lands.

For a brief moment I could raise levies of 11k, then I had to give all the baronies and counties away. Boo hoo :(

The game is much quicker starting as a ready assembled kingdom. A few more complications to deal with but once you've got the hang of things by playing as a small independent county I would definitely recommend playing as a larger Kingdom.

Now time to focus on improving my holdings. I might try and fabricate some claims in Ireland and see if I can conquer the UK as the Danes instead....

A friend of mine just suffered a huge setback...she had just taken complete control of Ireland when out of the west came...the Aztecs! She forgot she had Sunset Invasion turned on and they totally overran western Europe in a matter of years. She, too, plans to start with a larger kingdom now that she has played many hours of "tutorial island."

Lol! Of all the Dlc I might get when I have some money, I don't think I will bother with that one...

I just couldn't face spending another hundred years with not much to do. Starting as a bigger kingdom makes it much easier to jump in and get conquering.

I didn't get that silly DLC. Have no intention to get it either lol.

I like starting small since you can actually get somewhere in CK2 without the player being an exceptionally skilled player. In Hearts Of Iron, small countries literally can't do anything at all other than helping allied countries, unless you're one of the incredibly skilled players I've seen in AARs e.g. Communist China conquering the whole world.

I'd like to play a faction next that doesn't require you to acquire a CB everything you wanna start a war. Pagans, or Muslims probably. You can do that with Castile and Holy War into Africa but it's kinda tough facing the Jihads alone (well most of the time anyways), unless you wanna expand into France which is equal suicide. I've played Castile 3 times now, unlikely I'll play them again.

It is good that you can viably start small and win/perform well but it's more fun (I think) to be able to get into the game quicker.

It would be nice to just be able to declare war whenever you want to and conquer where ever you wanted to. I'm not sure I like the idea of the CBs, they seem to be there just to artificially limit your expansion. I'd prefer if there was a mechanic which said you can go to war whenever you want, but without a valid cause or claim it damages your relationships with other countries and maybe upsets your vassals/citizens.

Someone posted on the forums "Go home Johann, you're drunk." when Sunset Invasions was released. I think that's totally apt.