- Crusader Kings 3 Succession Guide - What Each Law Means
- Laws
- Primogeniture - Crusader Kings II Wiki
- Preventing Succession Crisis
Gavelkind is more lore-friendly. Primogeniture is more gameplay-friendly (a lot of people just want to paint the map). So I vote: Gavelkind from the beggining and an easier path to Primogeniture if the player wants to do that. But with increased bad relations modifiers with dynasty and vassals in general.
- Succession laws are those laws that govern who becomes the new ruler of a realm upon the death of the previous incumbent. Every title in Crusader Kings II has associated succession laws. If a ruler holds multiple titles, the succession laws of the highest ranked realm apply. If a ruler of, for example, king rank has multiple kingdom titles, the succession laws of each kingdom will apply for.
- Acquire a second title of your current rank which already has primogeniture and make it your primary title. But if you just want to prevent your realm from splitting apart due to too many sons, consider the other succession forms where one heir inherits everything: Ultimogeniture (all to youngest son) Seniority (all to oldest living dynasty member).
- In medieval England, the principle of patrilineal ultimogeniture (i.e. Inheritance by the youngest surviving male child) was known as Borough-English. In 1327, a court case found it to be the tradition in the borough of Nottingham, whereas in areas influenced by Anglo-Norman culture, primogeniture was.
It’s time for another game review! *gong*
Lately I’ve been completely addicted to Crusader Kings II. I don’t typically get really into games like this, but it happens every once in a blue moon, and typically either with something totally mindless (hi, TF2) or something that requires a lot of thought. That said, I’m going to try to be fair, so while I personally want to give it high ratings because I can’t stop playing it, my taste in games knows no rationality.
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Gameplay: 3/5
I really want to bump this up considering I like it, but while it can be as addicting as any game, the gameplay has some fairly glaring flaws.
The main issue with CKII (and, actually, a lot of Paradox’s games) is that it’s very difficult to get into and has a fairly steep learning curve. The tutorial is absolute junk in how it takes you through — don’t hit the Continue button; you’ll miss parts. Go back to the topics and go through them one by one. Even then, it skims some bits that become important later on, though by that time you’ll have hopefully figured the UI out enough to be able to make your way.
Once you get past figuring out what the hell is going on, though, you’ll be in an environment of courtly intrigues and feudal battles for supremacy. If you like anything resembling high fantasy or medieval fight scenes, you’ll enjoy yourself. The system by which alliances are determined is complex and interesting, mostly consisting of marrying off your children. Whether pregnancy happens and the gender of the child is completely luck of the draw — certain personality traits of the character affect the chance of becoming pregnant (i.e., there is absolutely no chance of a eunuch having kids, and a woman over 40 is “past childbearing age”, but a Lustful character will beget children on anything that stays at court long enough). So, when I say “try to have a son”, what I mean is either try to change the line of succession to your title to something that allows daughters to inherit (this is difficult if your empire is large for a few reasons) or try to avoid you or your spouse kicking the bucket. Marrying off courtiers can also gain you allies if a courtier is your kin.
Another way to gain alliances is to send your children to be tutored at another court (or by a courtier of your own). This is useful if a particular individual has traits you would like to see in your child or heir, and you get a reasonable bonus to the character’s opinion of you for entrusting them with a ward.
Crusader Kings 3 Succession Guide - What Each Law Means
The combat AI is not great. It’s not total garbage, but it’s simplistic and seems like it got pushed to the wayside in favour of the alliance/intrigues capability. When you decide to go to war (or get dragged into a war by your liege), the outcome is again largely determined with simple percentages. I’ve lost battles that should have been trouncings because of what is essentially a bad roll of the dice. It’s entertaining but unrealistic. Calling troops in to war from your allies is borderline useless as they will come to your capital and sit there with no way to effect any kind of control. Your allies calling you in typically means you’ll be soloing the war unless you just don’t send any troops. (Which is actually a perfectly valid strategy incurring no penalty, so if it’s a war you don’t really care about, it works.) You may, however, want to consider sending troops to the Crusades when they get called.
Sending your troops somewhere seems to attempt the quickest route though certainly not the most strategic or direct. There is no way to modify the strategy your troop movement takes, so you’ll have to fudge it on your own.
All in all, getting the hang of it is tricky and it has some downfalls (particularly if you like battles), but it’s fun and engaging otherwise, and watching your characters grow and develop and eventually die is entertaining.
Eyes & Ears: 4.5/5
Knock half a star for repetition, but the music is actually fairly good. You’ll hear the same music and sounds in the background, but the music isn’t annoying and the sounds are actually useful to alert you to things going on (i.e., you’ll want to know when your son has a child).
The graphics are pretty if a little bit dated in some ways, and the attention to detail in the faces and names is also interesting. They paid much more attention to character detail than other details, though the map is accurate and the number of crests for even very small houses is impressive.
Performance: 3.5/5
On my Lenovo ThinkPad E430 with integrated gfx and 8GB of RAM, it runs okay. Some parts are slower than they should be, strictly speaking, and the game takes an incredibly long time to load. I have to conclude that it’s a result of inefficient memory usage rather than a lot of things going on, because it shouldn’t take upwards of two minutes to load a few game saves.
Otherwise it runs pretty well, and even bringing up as many troops as possible and going through a number of characters in quick succession doesn’t stymie it.
Overall: 3.66/5
CKII is actually a decent game. It’s not the greatest game you will ever play, but for a strategy game from a company known for in-depth strategy games, it holds its own.
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Fun Tips From Your Friendly Neighbourhood Casual Gamer
1. Either have a son, or make it so your daughters can succeed you.
Agnatic elective is incredibly annoying and requires a lot of work and bribery to get your vassals to not turn on you, so if you can, absolute cognatic primogeniture is a decent way to go. (Or ultimogeniture if your eldest is an unfit ruler.)
Laws
2. Bribe everyone you can, early and often.
Making gifts to key people is a pretty good way to get a permanent opinion boost, which can mean the difference between plotting against you and allying with you. Don’t discount small lords with minimal holdings; if they go to war for you it can make a difference.
3. Don’t forget your council!
Make sure your councilors are out doing things. In particular, never never never let your Chancellor or Spymaster be sitting idle. The Chancellor is an easy in for diplomatic relations if they’re a capable diplomat, and the Spymaster is a pretty good way to ruin your rivals’ and enemies’ days. Your Marshal is also useful if you’re having a revolution problem.
Primogeniture - Crusader Kings II Wiki
4. Play nice with the Pope.
Preventing Succession Crisis
It might be obnoxious, but the Pope’s favour means a lot. Being excommunicated is a big hit to everyone’s opinion of you and is a valid casus belli for people to make war upon you, just because. If you do end up excommunicated. the Pope is not in any way immune to bribery, so sending him a gift can tip the scales just enough in your favour to be able to successfully petition for the excommunication being lifted. You can also send your Chancellor to curry favour with the Pope for you.
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Party on, Wayne!