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My first experience with Crusader Kings II

Josey Wales said:
Spotting and information sharing would work in a similar way and units in combat with an enemy unit that they were not aware of before contact would suffer a penalty that troops in combat with an enemy unit that they knew were there would not, thereby simulating a 'readiness for combat' that surprised troops would not have.

Essentially the idea would be to simulate the cumbersomeness of managing an ancient/medieval army but still allow the player to make ongoing meaningful decisions throughout the game.
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I like this. I am just not sure how much C&C ancient and medieval generals hand. As you said a game has to be fun though. You could also lose control of your units through retreat or impetuous advance to the enemy baggage train or in pursuit. Underlay it with a CKII relationship and traits system of key commanders of your army/allies. A greedy allied commander would go for the enemy baggage, whereas an ambitious allied commander might disobey your orders to seek glory for themselves.

Bulletpoint said:
As a related aside, I'm still watching through the video tutorial series about CKII. One thing that strikes me is that there is much too much emphasis on murder, and it seems it's much too easy for the player to manipulate world events by having tens of characters assassinated, even the king of France, even though the player has the role of some backwater Irish duke. Obviously murder was part of Medieval politics, but if it had been that easy to murder with impunity, society would have collapsed.

Again, restricting the player is key.
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I rarely murder anyone in the game. They also often escape murder attempts. You need a high intrigue leader and spymaster to pull it off. I usually try to imprison them and then... take their money maybe make it real hard on them for a while...:D
 
Bulletpoint said:
I know there was an American Civil War game many years ago that actually simulated sending out messengers on horseback to give new orders to regiments. That kind of system seems very fitting for a medieval combat game as well, I think. The player should not lose all control; I think the keyword is restriction.
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Yep messengers would be one means of control, others means of signalling would include instruments and the unfurling of banners.

Hardradi said:
I like this. I am just not sure how much C&C ancient and medieval generals hand. As you said a game has to be fun though.
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I agree, from my understanding the plan was made before hand then everyone just carried out their orders as best they good but playing this as a game is probably not much fun, it doesn't appeal to me at least. So a fun, engaging and thoughtful game would be somewhere between this at one end and TW at the other (where a unit can perform multiple tasks per minute, stand exactly where you want them to, have exactly the frontage and depth that you want them to... etc). Perhaps there are some table top rules already out there that achieve this kind of balance.
 
One thing about Crusader Kings II that I wish was a must, or close to it, is that the king, prince or whoever is the boss, had the chance to get some training in fighting to improve his tactical skills and battle abilities and then lead his men at war.

There used to be a mod, I think it was the Game of Thrones mod, which gave the player the option to train the king from a young age so he was a good fighter when he inherited the throne.

It seems that many players have their leader cower at home to see him grow fat and old while someone else leads the army for him. A great leader of the realm should lead the army himself.
 
BornGinger said:
One thing about Crusader Kings II that I wish was a must, or close to it, is that the king, prince or whoever is the boss, had the chance to get some training in fighting to improve his tactical skills and battle abilities and then lead his men at war.

There used to be a mod, I think it was the Game of Thrones mod, which gave the player the option to train the king from a young age so he was a good fighter when he inherited the throne.

It seems that many players have their leader cower at home to see him grow fat and old while someone else leads the army for him. A great leader of the realm should lead the army himself.
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That's actually a really good point. It's an age where it is completely normal and even expected that kings go to war and fight, yet doing a bit of practice before going to the battlefield? Apparently that would be cheating :)

But of course if you had your king spend his time training for war, he would have less time to lead the kingdom, so other stats would suffer. All good games are about making the player make interesting and meaningful decisions.
 
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Bulletpoint said:
That's actually a really good point. It's an age where it is completely normal and even expected that kings go to war and fight, yet doing a bit of practice before going to the battlefield? Apparently that would be cheating :)

But of course if you had your king spend his time training for war, he would have less time to lead the kingdom, so other stats would suffer. All good games are about making the player make interesting and meaningful decisions.
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You make a high Military stat person their Guardian and it will often give them a higher Military stat but their other stats may suffer. I assume the Guardianship reflects them getting Martial training from their Guardian.
 
If I remember correctly there are different traits for characters which are connected to fighting. The older one Martial, which decides how good they are at fighting and defending themselves and also the newer ones, which I think have more to do with using their martial in the best way, like tactics and strategy.

The mod I mentioned earlier had the option to train your future Count or Duke (all Kings are the top Dukes), and his brothers into improving there Martial trait and were also given one of the tactical traits when the training was finished. I tried to find the coding for that training and copy it to the other mod I was using but couldn't make it work properly.

When I mentioned about this on the Paradox forum that the boss of the Realm should lead his men in war and that Paradox could make this training as part of the game people began to complain and didn't want their Top Duke to risk dying when the son was still young and risk having the Counsel undo the changes the player had made in the Realm.

And of some strange reason those players that complained on the forum weren't too happy when I called them cowards and royalists.
 
I never used that option to transfer my realm to EUIV.

What I usually did was to build a quite large realm and then either have the law that everything should be divided among the sons when the Top Duke died or just leave the law as it was. When the head of the family was old and close to dying or just had died I saved the game and logged out just to log in again and play a count in another part of the map to see how the AI would deal with what I had built up.

Sometimes things went quite well but most of the times there was wars among the brothers and other situations which the AI couldn't control.
 
Even though this game takes place in the Middle Ages, there are many places where modern sensibilities seem to poke through.

For example, I just got an event where it says:

"My daughter has a tender and loving soul, trusting everyone in the castle. I fear she will get hurt someday".

I get some choices to make.

Choice 1:

"Those who love get love in return!"

Choosing this option gives the daughter +1 diplomacy and the "kind" trait, which is a really good trait, even though it does lower chances of protecting oneself against assasination plots.

Choice 2:

"Thank the Blessed Virgin for my daughter's virtues!"

This choice only yields 5 piety points, which is a very small amount. Also, it has 90 pct. chance of having no effect, and 10 pct. chance of making the daughter envious, which is a arguably a bad trait.

Generally, it seems choosing the religious option has a large chance of having no effect, and a 10-20 pct. chance of giving a negative trait.

Another example: if my son is modest and humble, and I choose to thank the Lord, there's 80 pct chance of no effect, 10 pct. chance of the son getting the trait "proud", and 10 pct chance of giving the trait "wroth".

Even with myself personally being a non-believer, that just doesn't make much sense. In a setting where religion was so important, why are religious choices played down? If the son seems to be growing up modest and humble, and the father praises the Lord for it, why would the son suddenly be filled with pride or rage?
 
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