RB goes medieval - a CK:DV succesion game

[regoarrarr]

As a followup to the report, I disbanded our armies, and we are up to 15gpm (gold per month). I figure another year or so, and then we can put the smackdown on a few more of these tribes.

[Mist]

When I hit unpause, I am alerted that our wonderful son Syatoslav has turned 16 and is ready to get a wife. I check the thread for instructions on good ol Sy, and don't see anything. But to me, he's got some chances to turn into yet ANOTHER reasonable heir. Heir and a spare and a ....

I did not mention him because he's a weak prospect. Intrigue of 4 is low and would only allow us 2 provinces.

So he needs a good wife. One thing that I've noticed in the (very) few games that I've played is that it seems like you have better options for wives right at the beginning of the year in January.

Actually it's probably due to the fact that random courtiers tend to be generated at the start of the year. Game does good job of tracking birthdays and if a child was born in the summer, it'll turn 16 in the summer.

When marrying pay attention to education level of the bride, slightly worse stats are an acceptable trade-off for level 4. You can see what influence can it have on kids education.

A bit later we get this event, which I've seen a few times in my own games, but I never really know what to do.

You did good, first option is rarely worth the money. Second is worth considering only if you lack a person to fill this court position.

Should I have sieged Livs, installed myself as Count of Livs, and then it would have given me the option to negotiate with Velikiye?

Declaring war on a lord doesn't declare on his vassals. You need to do that separately for each vassal you want to fight and claim on later.

As it stands, I installed myself as count of both, and then granted the title of Count of Velikiye to good ol Roman. He now has 3 non-contiguous provinces

And that's probably as much as he can handle. Any more and he'll start giving them to people in his court, which would be bad.

We're now one over the limit again as well. I think I'm going to pause here for awhile. I see how it can be hard to write a good writeup in just one sitting! I only made it 6 months!

If it's slightly over limit ( 85-90% efficiency ) just bite the bullet and build post offices everywhere. If it's more give out more land.

[regoarrarr]

I did not mention him because he's a weak prospect. Intrigue of 4 is low and would only allow us 2 provinces.

Ah okay - I didn't notice the Intrigue of 4 (and what that meant)

Actually it's probably due to the fact that random courtiers tend to be generated at the start of the year. Game does good job of tracking birthdays and if a child was born in the summer, it'll turn 16 in the summer.

Hmm okay. I always noticed my aging also in January. I'm sure you're right though.

When marrying pay attention to education level of the bride, slightly worse stats are an acceptable trade-off for level 4. You can see what influence can it have on kids education.

Gotcha!

Declaring war on a lord doesn't declare on his vassals. You need to do that separately for each vassal you want to fight and claim on later.

Okay - I don't think that was the situation we were in though. It was one guy who had 2 provinces. If I had installed myself as the count of the "main" one, what would have happened to the 2nd province?

And that's probably as much as he can handle. Any more and he'll start giving them to people in his court, which would be bad.

If it's slightly over limit ( 85-90% efficiency ) just bite the bullet and build post offices everywhere. If it's more give out more land.

As it stands, it's at 95% efficiency I think. If we do get more land, any suggestions on who to give it out to if not Roman?

[Mist]

Well, Roman has 3, so give a second one to Rostislav? After that, no idea. Have to wait for the rest of the kids to grow up I guess.

Okay - I don't think that was the situation we were in though. It was one guy who had 2 provinces. If I had installed myself as the count of the "main" one, what would have happened to the 2nd province?

Ah, yeah. In that case if he was a High Chief he'd keep a second one and stay independent. You'd be also bound by a period of truce ( can be broken, but costs prestige ).

[pling]

I tried changing the resolution of the game through the settings.txt file, but, even though it worked, the game screen is not centralized... Any idea why this would happen?

Is this after you get into the game or just on the splash screens/menu? I found that the menus & such were the same size and in the top left corner, but then once into the game the map of the world fills the whole screen.

[Maksim]

On the matter of "knight offers to teach the trade" - I almost never go for that one. The option that guarantees an increase in skill requires you to spend a year's income that scales with demesne size; so a mid-sized kingdom can spend thousands of gold here.

About the only time this is worth it is if the offer is for the designated heir, and you don't have a better use for the money.

On the matter of vassal counts and non-contiguous provinces - that's actually good; if the vassal were to rebel, his armies would be spread around, and can be defeated easily.

Although, rather than give a count three provinces, I'd consider making one of my courtiers a count as well - preferably a good, smart co-religionist of different family, so that you can marry your sons to his daughters (and vice versa) later without fear of inbreeding. That way, you have two count vassals, which is better for your prestige.

On efficiency limits - personally, my rule of thumb is not to go below 80%. 90% is OK, especially as you can get an event or two that will give you traits to increase your intrigue, thus getting you to a better efficiency.

[regoarrarr]

So up next, as I mentioned, we're up to 15 gpm. We still have one more province than we can rightfully govern from our intrigue levels. My thinking though is that since I have one foot in the grave (sort of ), I'll just wait until Roman inherits - he's got monster intrigue. EDIT - that jives with what Mist has been saying elsewhere in the thread (I think?!?! )

Heinrich King of Germany wants to form an alliance. I check and he's at war with TONS of folks, so I decline.

October 1079: Syatoslav finishes his Martial Education and becomes a "Tough Soldier" which, if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, gives him a Level 2 army education. So with the 4 Intrigue as Mist points out, he's not a great heir. We'll probably have to figure out SOMETHING to do with him though.

In looking at the map of provinces that we need to control to become King of Lithuania, I use our 824 prestige (that just dies with us, right?) to grab a few titles. 150 prestige each to get a claim as Count of Pinsk and Count of Podlaise (currently manned by our Uncle err Cousin err I'm not sure Boris).

Our fosterling Ksenia has her personality mature



In addition to Suspicious, she got Arbitrary. So +1 martial, +1 intrigue, -2 diplo and -1 stewardship overall.

1080 dawns and Wood Ploughs and Slinged Javelin spread to Polotsk. @Mist - was there an easy way to get all these spreads that you used to prepare your report? Or were you just noticing and writing them down as they've happened? We've had a few other ones over the last year. We've also had some improvements being built, but I haven't built anything now as we're just now recovering our economy from our military expansion.

April 1080: The Pechnegs offer white peace (finally), and I accept. I also pay 28 prestige to end revolt in Zhumd. (Stupid pagans). I notice that Rostislav's "lusty" wife has already given him 2 kids - too bad they're both daughters

September - we get a revolt choice.



I take Option 2, hoping to convert them to the One True Faith (Orthodox). I got both the rolls - so revolt and conversion. All in all, not bad. I'm assuming that shortly I'll get a chance to stop the revolt a la Zhmud.

And indeed, it's not even till the end of the month where I'm presented with a choice of

* End revolt, 50% to return prosperity to Normal
* End revolt, pay 26 gold, get 50 piety, end it being "looted" and 25% of prosperity set to Rich
* Levy more taxes, get some gold but only have a 50% chance of ending the revolt.

Once again, I choose Option 2, and Livs becomes "Prosperous", going up to 6gpm.

When 1081 shows up, Rogvolod is now 16, but I think I'm going to wait on him to marry to Ksenia, who is still only 13.



Ugh except his education comes in and he gets a Level 1 Then he starts challenging to be the new spymaster, so I have to give him a beatdown

There's something weird going on in Podlaise. It's showing up as orange in the realm map, and there is a "rebel" army sieging it. I'm not really sure what that is but I'll keep an eye on it and possibly exploiting it. What appears to have happened is that our "cousuncle" Boris died (at the tender age of 28) and his 10 year old son has inherited the throne. Maybe some folks in the province don't like it?

Bad luck late in 1082



Our up and coming fosterling Ksenia bites it!

November 1083 I get kind of bored Our reputation had gone back up to only "slightly" tarnished, so I decide to declare war on some of the surrounding chiefdoms. None of them have any type of army to speak of, so the war goes swimmingly. Finally finish off in May of '84 and I take all 3 provinces. We're still only at a 10% penalty for having a large demesne (90% efficiency), so I keep Zemigalians and Lettigalians, and give Starya Russia to Rostislav.

[Mist]

We'll probably have to figure out SOMETHING to do with him though.

You can have him tour the world like Gleb

In addition to Suspicious, she got Arbitrary

Arbitrary seriously sucks. If there's a trait that can break a character, it's arbitrary.

@Mist - was there an easy way to get all these spreads that you used to prepare your report? Or were you just noticing and writing them down as they've happened?

There's a file in the main game folder called history.txt which is basically a game log dump. The catch is, it gets emptied each time you start a new game or load a save. I just alt-tab to the desktop before ending a session and do a copy of it for later browsing.

There's something weird going on in Podlaise. It's showing up as orange in the realm map, and there is a "rebel" army sieging it.

Orange means you've got claim on it. AI lets its provinces get sieged by rebels till they almost fall and then mobilises local regiment to try and fight them off. Sometimes this work, sometimes doesn't. After rebels get the province they need to hold it for a year and it goes independent with a new Count.

November 1083 I get kind of bored

Patience young apprentice, patience. It's a strategy, not a FPS Just be careful, each level of bad reputation makes it harder to keep vassals and courtiers on your good side.

[regoarrarr]

Okay time to finish this one off.

A few things to note:

We had a revolt in Zhumd, which was summarily put down.

Rogvolod whined about wanting a piece of land for his own, so I

a) Marry him off to this fine piece of work



and

b) Grant him the title of Count of Lettigalians, a nice little province currently under revolt and being looted

I do like the suggestion posted earlier to try and grant some counts that aren't related to us, for some good ol non-inbreeding, but we don't have any one currently that would make sense there.

I notice that all of our provinces have Royal Posts now, and so I can up the crown duty. Similarly I notice I can up the tolls and maintain loyalties of the burghers, due to having courts of justice everywhere.

November 1085, we lose the trait "Stressed" and gain the trait "Crazed". Uhhhh this can't be good I sense that we are not long for this world, and double check the "will" to make sure Roman is on call.

Annoyingly I notice that Crazed gives -5 to all attributes, which means that we're getting less income because our Intrigue is down to 4.

I also note that in the 7 years that Rostislav and his "lusty" wife have been married, they've had 6 kids and are expecting again!!!

Then we get this popup



I wasn't sure so I checked okay. It was that pesky boy Rogvolod and the count of West Divina who were "demanding" this.

August 1087 - Our daughter Irina finishes his education, and gets Diplomat level 3 - not bad. I look for a good Duke or something to marry her off to. After a bit of waiting I end up marrying her off to the Count of Galich Mersky (to our east)



I don't know - at this point I probably should have just given up some of my counties to folks, but I was hoping that Vseslav would JUST DIE ALREADY! That way I could let Roman inherit them all and he'd be strong (Intriguing?) enough to manage them all. But he keeps hanging on. Mist told me the guy would be dead in 2 years tops, but he's hung around for 9!

Yikes - September 1088 we go under a Maniac Investment kick, and lose another 3 points of Intrigue. Our stats are now 3/0/1/4. DIE! I read something about hitting F12 and typing in "Die" to retire as this person, but I'm not sure if that's kosher or not. I check into the possibilities of assassinating myself, but that doesn't seem to be an option I give 100 gold to the Count of Sudovia (our vassal), because he was down to 44% loyal.

But... apparently that didn't really work very well



I mobilize the forces and Marshal Davyd whups up on the rebels. In fact he even gets a random event gaining him 1 Martial point.

And then in the middle of the war, I get this little popup



So... I guess he's the Count of Minsk now! One more province under our control, which is nice. Thankfully he finishes off the battle before moving over to Minsk. For lack of a better (any) alternative, I install our son Syatoslav as the new Marshal, which is important because then the peasants over in Zemigalians start revolting and need a beatdown.

And I'm going to end here. I'm one year early (Jan 1090), but I've played a full 10 years, and I think we've got a bit to discuss.

[regoarrarr]

1) Good ol Vseslav just will not DIE already The man is 60 years old and still kicking... Can we kill him off? Do we do that?

2) If we don't, he is eligible to marry.

3) We're one province short of being able to style ourselves King of Lithuania.

4) Is there anything we can do to more readily "convert" some of our pagan provinces?

5) One problem with Roman is that he has no kids. Maybe he or his wife are infertile?

6) Can we (and do we want to) swap out of the Feudal Contract that the vassals "made me" sign? I looked but the option to select other options was grayed out for me.

SleepingMoogle - you're..... UP!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8082680/polotsk1090.zip