Crusader Kings II - Guide (incomplete, but still useful)

Hey everyone. I decided to make a guide for CKII. At the moment it is still mainly work in progress. But I ll try to cover every topic as good as I can. Please comment if you think something can be improved (typo's, things I might have missed, other questions you might have). Anyway I hope it will be usefull to everyone.

Introduction - What is important to read

Because the guide became much larger than I had anticipated, I decided to make a list of what sections are important to read and what sections offer information that isn t necessary to play the game.

Must read:

• All the "Getting started sections"
  
• Wars - Preparing a casus belli
  
• Factions - Rebelling against your liege
  
• Factions - Dealing with troubles from your vassals
  
• Diplomacy - Allies
  
• Wars - Declaring wars, warscore and possible outcomes
  
• Wars - Raising troops
  
• Succession Laws - Succession Laws

DLC's

This guide does not cover all DLC's. Instead it focuses on the vanilla version. However after reading the entire guide you should be able to understand the content of all DLC's fairly easy.

-Athor: Two-Piece

Getting started - Counts, Dukes Kings and Emperors

Before starting to play Crusader Kings 2 you will have to make sure you understand the in game hiërarchy. Someone who rules over you is called your liege. Depending on the laws he sets you have to pay tribute to him. You will have to pay him by giving a percentage of your income and by providing some of your troops. In return he will defend you from outsiders who try to take over your lands. You yourself will also always have vassals. These vassals are obligated to pay you taxes and provide some troops (you are their liege).

There are five different rank-levels. In order to vassalise someone you will need to have a higher rank than the person you want to vassalise. These five rank levels are:


Cities, Baronies and Bishoprics: These are the smallest areas in the game. They are a part of a county. Cities are controlled by mayors, bishoprics by bishops and baronies by barons. The holder of the county they're in is their liege. It is impossible to start the game as a mayor, bishop or baron. Mayors, bishops or barons have an orange edge around their portraits.



Counties: A county is the lowest level you can start the game with. A county is symbolised as a single geographical area on the map. The count controls the main castle in this area. Counties are controlled by counts. A count can be the liege of mayors, bishops and barons. A count can in turn be(come) a vassal of a Duke. Counts have a silver edge around their portrait.



Duchies: The owner of a duchy is a duke. Dukes can have counts as vassals. A duke can in turn become the vassal of a king. A duke has a silver edge with blue decorations around their portrait.





Kingdoms: The owner of a Kingdom is a King. Kings can become the liege of dukes and counts. The king himself can possibly be vassalised by an emperor. You can recognise a king by the golden edge around his portrait.





Empires: The owner of an Empire is an emperor. Emperors can become liege of kings, dukes and counts. An emperor himself cannot be vassalised by anyone. You can recognise an emperor by the portrait with purple decorations and a golden edge.



Make it a habit to recognise counts, kings, dukes, etc. by the edge of their portrait. Because a duke isn t always named a duke in the game (for historical accuracy probably), which can potentially be very confusing for new players. In this guide I ll stick to the terms we used earlier. But be aware of the alternate namings.

After reading this you should:

• Know what vassals and lieges are
  
• Know the difference between mayors, bishops, barons, counts, dukes kings and emperors

Author: Two-Piece

Getting Started - Starting a game

Whenever you start a new game you will have to choose a character to play with. It is essential to understand a bit of the interface to decide where to start.

Click to enlarge

Bookmarked dates (4): Bookmarked dates set the game to dates that some events occured. In the textbox on the bottom left is a description of interesting things that happen at that time.

Interesting Characters (5): This section shows characters you might want to play corresponding to a specific bookmarked date. There is typically something happening that has to do with those characters. It s great if you want a relatively short challenge you want to solve. However I wouldn t recommand it to new players.

Date (1): Here you can manually set a starting date between 15 september 1066 and 1 january 1337 (1 January 1453 is the date the game ends by the way). If you have the old gods DLC you can also start at "The Old Gods"-bookmark. But you can't begin your game between then and 15 september 1066.

Map modes (2) : Here you can select different views of the world. This is simply to help you pick a character you d like to play. I ll explain the modes briefly:

• Terrain: Gives a look at what kinds of terrains there are. This can be of strategic importance while playing the game. Tough it s not a very important factor while choosing with what character to start if you ask me. Let s just say this is the prettiest mapmode.
  
• Independent Realms: If you want to start as a ruler who has no liege, this mode will show all the rulers you can play.
  
• Counts: Shows all the counts you can play. Regardless if they re independant rulers or not.
  
• Dukes: Shows all the dukes you can play. Regardless if they re independant rulers or not.
  
• Kings: Shows all the kings you can play. Regardless if they re independant rulers or not.
  
• Religions: Shows who has what religion. This can be an important factor for future gameplay. Gameplay in an environment with different religions can be very different from gameplay in an environment surrounded by the same religion. There are more reasons you can attack someone than there would be when you re surrounded by your own religion. It also means there would be more reasons you could be attacked by others. For beginners I would recommand starting somewhere your own religion is dominant.
  
• Cultures: Gives a look of the cultures people have around the world. Being of the same culture as the rulers around you gives some advantages when you have to deal with them. I also believe you can make a special building for each culture, which provides a specific kind of troops and gives them a bonus. (correct me if I m wrong about this, I m not 100% sure)

Ironman Mode (3) : There is the option to enable ironman mode. Running ironman mode will give some restrictions to the game:

• In ironman mode you can save the game only once. Autosaves of the game will overwrite this save. So you can t go back in time to correct a mistake you made.
  
• You will be obligated to play on normal difficulty mode while in ironman mode.
  
• It is not allowed to use the ruler designer (a tool to create a specific ruler to your own taste) when ironman is enabled.

The only advantage of ironman mode is that you can get steam achievements when it s enabled. So if you re inexperienced you might want to keep it on disabled.

DLC's (7) : Here are the DLC's that you are using displayed. Not owning some of the DLC's will put some limits on the character selection. For example: If you don t own the "Sons Of Abraham"-DLC you cannot play the game as a jewish ruler.

Selected ruler details (6): This shows some details about the selected ruler.

Below his portrait is some information. It shows his most important title, if he is independant or has a liege, his religion and his culture. (You can get his age by hovering over his portrait by the way.)

The game also provides a difficulty bar that shows how difficult the game will be to play. In my personal opinion it is better to ignore this since the difficulty of a game depends on much more than the information that is used to calculate the game's difficulty.

Finally a list of your vassals is shown. This just gives an indication of how many and what type of vassals you have at that moment.

After reading this you should:

• Know the limitations of Ironman mode
  
• Know the (dis)advantages of starting near other cultures and religions
  
• Be able to select a ruler at any point of time to play
  
• Know how to play "scenarios" in the game with "Interesting Characters"

Note: For people who are still getting familiar with the game I recommend starting as the Duke of Munster in Ireland in 1066 AD, Stamford Bridge.

Author - Two-Piece

Getting started - Basic Interface

Before we go any further there is this screenshot of a regular in-game screen. I will briefly explain what is what. The goal here is not to tell you all details about every screen. It s just to help everyone to be familiar with it. Notice I accidentually numbered number 14 and 15 twice.























1. This is you. you can click on yourself to see the details. Alternatively you can click the coat of arms to see information about your country.
2. This is a button that shows your council. A few wise man/woman who can help you.
3. This is a button that shows information about laws that currently exist in your country.
4. This button shows the technology interface. You can see your country's capital progress here.
5. Information about your military. Here you can check all kinds of info about the troops that are available to you.
6. The intrigue menu button. The intrigue menu allows you to see your prisoners, do sneaky stuff and defend yourself against others who try to do sneaky stuff (like killing you).
7. A button to open the factions menu. Here you can create or join a faction. You can as well check other factions within your country.
8. The religion button. Here you can check whoever is in charge of your religion. You can check how your religion is doing as well.
9. Alerts. Messages that show here give information about situations you should be aware of.
10. Money. Shows how rich or poor you are. Hover over it to get quick details.
11. Prestige. Shows how much piety you have earned. Hover over it to see how your piety will develop.
12. Piety. Shows how much piety you have earned. Hover over it to see how it will grow.
13. Demsne Your demesne size is the amount of holdings you own personally/can own untill you get a penalty.
14. Realm size The amount of holdings that are directly or indirectly under your rule. So all your vassals, their vassals, their vassals, etc also count.
15. Score. Shows your total score (getting a high score is the official goal of the game, but you shouldn t give a ♥♥♥♥ and ignore it to have fun). If your character dies his piety and prestige points will be added to his score.
(I can t count)
14. Date. This shows the current date. Click on it to make time run. With the + and - you can make time go faster or slower.
15. Notifications. Here you can see messages about stuff that happens.
16. Information. Here you can check a lot of informations at a glance. What troops are moving, how your siege's are going, what you are building in your holdings, etc.
17. County information. If you click on the map on a county you will open the county screen. This screen gives a load of information about the specific county.
18. The owner of the county you selected.
19. Wars the countyholder is currently involved in.
20. Vassals that belong to the selected county.
21. Wars you or your liege are involved in. Very usefull. It shows what wars you re involved in and how they re going.
22. Map modes. Use these buttons to change map modes and study data on the map.
23. Map mode shortcuts. Drag your map mode buttons here to create shortcuts.
24. Go to the main menu. In the main menu you can save the game, quit, change settings and stuf flike that. But clicking Esc on your keyboard is a lot faster than clicking this.
25. Ledger. In the ledger you can check all kind of data about things in the game. There are lists of all kinds of lists with information related to the game you re in.
26. Home button. Click this to move your view to your capital.
27. Search a title. Go to a small menu to search a title you re looking for. Very handy if you can t find a specific place.
28. Search people. Here you can search all the people that exist in the game (there s a lot of them)

Getting started - Beginner checklist

While you are playing you are paying attention to many things at once. For beginners this would be a daunting task, because you do not know what to do. That s why this topic is being discussed. Here is a list to keep in mind at any point in the game!!!!!

• Keep your council at work: make sure to keep your council at work. Also check frequently on what you extactly sent them out to do. More often than not councellors are forgotten after they've done their job you sent them out to do (so they're basically doing the same job twice)
  
• Inheritance: You obviously want to be aware who will be the ruler after you. As well as being aware of what they will exactly inherit. Make sure your heir gets enough power to keep a stable country after your death.
  
• Factions: Always be aware of forming factions and their power. If you won t you'll soon have an ugly revolt against you.
  
• Money: Make sure you have enough money. If you go broke your troops will perform a lot worse!!! besides you might need it to pay for a fabricated claim or whatever.
  
• Political circumstances: Keep in mind what countries around you might cause a threat and be aware of their military power. Also keep an eye on their allies, that would potentially join them. You don t want to be attacked while fighting a strong enemy.
  
• Plan ahead: You want to have an at least general plan of your expansion in mind. This way you can keep expanding.

* A picture. Just because I feel like inserting one!!!! Oh..The hard choices that are ahead of you...

Wars - Preparing a casus belli

So here you are. You started your own fiefdom. Great, but what now? You might want to increase your holdings by warfare. But you can t just attack the lands you want. In order to attack someone you will first need a good reason. These reasons are called “Casus Belli”. “Casus Belli” are Latin words. Translated into English it would mean “an opportunity of war”. The term “Casus Belli” should make a lot more sense now.

There are many “Casus Belli”, reasons to go to war:

• Excommunication
  
• De jure claim
  
• Strong claim
  
• Weak claim
  
• Holy wars
  
• Trade Embargo's
  
• Invasions
  
• Depose Liege
  
• Independance
  
• and more...

After you have acquired a “Casus Belli” you are able to start a war. The factors you need to meet before starting a war are always:

• Have a valid casus belli
  
• You are currently not involved in a war with the ruler you want to declare war on
  
• You do not have any raised levies (armies you own, retinues, mercenaries and holy orders do not count)
  
• Your treasury contains over 0 gold
  
• You did not arrange a betrothal of one of your close family members with the ruler you want to declare war on. (close family members can be recognized by a drop of blood with a golden outline in their portrait)
  
• The target does not have any of your close family members imprisoned

If you are independent (you don’t have a liege) you also need to make sure that:

• The target you want to attack is independent. This means the target does not have a Duke, King or Emperor that rules over him. You might have a valid casus belli for a county that is ruled by a count who has a liege (a duke). This duke might also have another liege (a king). In this situation you will have to go to war with the king in order to claim the county as your own.

If you are part of a kingdom or empire there will be other restrictions which depend on the crown authority of the reigning king or emperor.


* You can check the crown authority that applies to you by going to the laws menu and clicking on your king's coat of arms.

In kingdoms with Autonomous (Minimal) or Limited (Low) Crown Authority vassals can attack:

• Their liege
  
• Independant targets outside of the kingdom/empire you're in
  
• People who have the same liege as you.

In kingdoms with Medium or High Crown Authority vassals can attack:

• Their Liege
  
• Independant targets outside the kingdom/empire. (They can no longer attack vassals with the same liege)

In kingdoms with Absolute (Maximal) Crown Authority vassals can attack:

• Their Liege. (They can no longer wage war outside of the kingdom/empire or vassals with the same liege)

A final restriction you might run into is the fact you can't attack someone because you can't pay the prestige or piety penalties. You will have to pay these penalties in the next cases:

• If you're attacking an ally it will cost you 50 prestige for "backstabbing" them.
  
• If you have a truce with your enemy and decide to attack him regardless it will cost you a lot prestige and all the rulers of the same religion as the person you attacked will decrease their opinion of you by -25. Quite a painfull opinion hit.
  
• If your target is currently in a crusade it will cost you 40 piety to attack them.
  
• If your target is at war with infidels

After reading this you should:

• Know what a casus belli is
  
• Know what conditions you need to meet to go to war with someone
  
• Know in which cases you have to pay a prestige penalty if you go to war.
  
• Be able to check your liege's crown authority
  
• Know the differences in attacking options between independant and vassalised rulers

Casus Belli - Strong Claims

The strong claim casus belli is one of the easiest to understand. Once you have a strong claim you can always use it to declare a war. Strong claims are personally held by characters.


* You can see the strong claims you currently own in the character details screen at the claims part (below the titles you currently own). They have a green edge around the titles coat of arms.










3 ways to get a strong claim

There are 3 ways to get a strong claim:

• Fabricated: you can get your chancellor to fabricate a claim on someones land. Just send him to the area you want to fabricate a strong claim. It is a random process affected by your chancellors diplomacy skill level. At some point you should get a message that your chancellor can fabricate a claim for you. This will cost you gold and some prestige. But you ll get a strong claim in return.
  
• Losing a title : If you lose one of your holdings at some point in the game. You will get a strong claim. So you can always go for a comeback.
  
• Being second or third in line to inherit: If you are second or third in line to inherit you get a strong claim on the highest level title(s) of the deceased titleholder. This does not count when there is some sort of elective inheritance law. Women can t get strong claims even if they re second or third in line to inherit. Women can inherit strong claims if the succession laws are absolute cognatic (just fancy words that mean women can inherit on the same grounds as men). Don t worry too much about this because absolute cognatic crown laws are very rare.

Pressing strong claims for others

You can also press strong claims other persons own. but the person you press the claim for has to be in your court or live somewhere within the area under your control.


* You can find claimants using the claimants button after clicking on a titles coat of arms. If they have a green thumb next to their name they will accept an invitation to your court. A red thumb means they will not accept your invitation (this shouldn t stop you from trying to get him in your court another way). No thumb at all means the person is unable to join you in his current stuation. (he/she is probably a ruler somewhere else or already one of your subjects)






* After finding the claimant you re interested in, you can invite him into court by interacting with the person and using the "invite to court" option (right-click on the characters portrait and go to diplomacy menu). Don t forget to check if he/she has a strong claim on the title (he/she can also have a weak claim, which is topic of the next part in the guide).





Once you convinced the claimant to move over to your court you will be able to press his claim. But.....Why would you want to press someone else's claim????? The most common reason is that you want this person to became one of your vassals. Another uncommon situation is that you want another person to rule the area in question for whatever reason. To become your vassal the title that is being claimed has to be lower than your own (Example: A duke can never have a duke as vassal). The person you are claiming it for also needs to meet a second condition. Those conditions can be;

• The person is one of your vassals before pressing the claim
  
• The person is of your dynasty (recogniseable by a drop of blood in their portrait).
  
• You also have a dejure claim on the title you are claiming.

The benefit of pressing a claim for someone else is that this person will love you for doing it, giving him a high opinion boost toward you.

After reading this you should:

• Know three ways to get strong claims.
  
• Be able to invite claimants in your court
  
• Know the advantage of pressing someone else's claim.
  
• Know when the person you press a claim for becomes your vassal.

- Author: Two-Piece

Casus Belli - Weak Claims

A weak claim is the little brother of a strong claim. They are also a lot more common than strong claims. But they have one big disadvantage: you need to meet extra criteria to go to war and claim them. If you understand how those weak claims work you can manipulate your surroundings and get them as a part of your strategy. Well used strategies with weak claims might even enable you to claim an entire Empire in 1 war!!!!

3 ways to get a weak claim

There are 3 ways to get a weak claim.

• Your father or mother used to own a title and you didn t get a strong claim on it when he/she died. These claims will always be inheritable after obtaining it.
  
• Your father or mother had a strong claim which was inheritable at the moment he/she died. Fabricated strong claims are the only ones that are never inheritable.
  
• Your father or mother had an inheritable weak claim when they died. In this case you inherit a claim from someone who obtained it in the earlier mentioned ways. At this stage you cannot pass on your claims to your children anymore.

* You can check if a claim is inheritable by hovering over it. Green text means it is inheritable, red text means it isn t.



Think about who will inherit which claims in the future and you can set a basis for some rapid expansion plans.

Making uninheritable claims inheritable

If you go to war for a claim that is not inheritable, the claim becomes inheritable. Personally I never make use of this feature, but I suppose it can be handy. You re basically granted an extra chance to press the claim later on if a war ends inconclusively (the revolt against their liege stopped) or if the claimant died.

When you can press (go to war for) a weak claim

There are 4 situations when you can press a weak claim:

• The land you are trying to claim is currently ruled by a regent. This will be the case if.
  
  • The current ruler is not an adult (they become adults at age 16)
    
  • The current ruler is incapable. This is a character trait which you usually get when you re very old or got permanent braindamage in some battle.

* You can recognise a regency by a small picture of the regent (the one that rules instead of the legitimate ruler) at the bottom right of a ruler's portrait.

• The land is currently ruled by a female ruler. This is only the case if inheritance laws are agnatic-cognatic.

Using intrigue and assassins can potentially help you to get in a situation where you can "create" regencies by making the old ruler disappear (if his heir happens to be incapable, female or a child).

• There is currently a war going on for the title you have a weak claim on. In this case You can join the wars for the claim in question. This does mean you have to fight the other people that are involved in a war for the same claim too. Making good use of this situation you can press weak claims you can normally not with your army. Making bad use of this stuation will get your army whiped out fairly fast. Try to make good use of the fact that the other rulers are also at war with each other!!!

* Clicking on the "weak claims"-alert on top of your screen you can browse what weak claims can be pressed at this moment.



* you can find people with claims in your realm by using the ledger.

After reading this you should:

• Know in which 4 situations when a character will get a weak claim on a title
  
• Know when you can press a weak claim
  
• Be able to think of situations in which you will get claims in the future.
  
• Be able to think of situations in which a female, non adult or incapable rulers will become rulers somewhere.

- Author: Two-Piece

Casus Belli - De Jure Claim

A dejure claim is perhaps one of the easiest claims to understand. A dejure claim is a claim on someone who should historically your vassal. Just like casus belli "de jure" are latin words. Translated they mean "according to law". So a de jure claim is about forcing someone who should be your vassal to accept your rule.

De Jure areas

First you will need to know the de jure areas that exist within the game. There are 3 de jure layers. Duchies, Kingdoms and Empires.

* You can take a look at all de jure areas in the mapmodes: De Jure Duchies, De Jure Kingdoms and De Jure Empires. Just press the buttons above your minimap. Each de jure area will have their own color. If you zoom out enough you will be able to read the names of the de jure areas. This picture shows the dejure duchies.

The title-details screen

If you want to know more about a specific title all you need to do is click on the coat of arms belonging to it. This literally works on every coat of arms in the game.

The title-details screen shows some information about a title you currently have selected. On the top left you see the name of the title you selected and the corresponding coat of arms (2). Below it shows the portrait of the person currently holding the title (5). There is also some information about the income of this person (6).

The de jure-button (1) needs some extra explaining. If the de jure-button is selected (as in the picture) it will show all the de jure vassals of this title in a list. If it is not selected it will show the people that are vassals of the title in the actual situation. This might be more, less or exactly the same as the de jure area. The terrain the vassals that are selected will have bright flashing borders on the map (as can be seen at the picture of the de jure areas.

If you look above the history button you can click on the coat of arms there. This will allow you to select the title of your liege and his liege and the area he holds. If the de jure button is ticked it will show the de jure areas, which the currently selected title is a part of. Just go in the game and try it out. It s harder to explain than it actually is to do.

Obtaining titles with De Jure claims

To make De Jure Claims you need to have a duchy, king or emperor title (a title that has a De Jure area attached to it). There are various ways to get those titles with your character:

• Create title: There are situations where a title does not exist in-game. In this case you can create one using the create title button (3). You need to pay a certain amount of gold and piety to create a title. You also need to posess over xx % of the De Jure area. Creating the title will give you some prestige.

* Hovering over the create title button will show you the requirements you need to meet and the prestigue you will gain.


* If you can create a new title the create title alert will appear on top of your screen.

• Usurp Title: If someone else already owns a title you want you can not create it. Instead you will usurp the title. Usurping a title means you "steal" it from someone else. The process is the same as creating one. You can not usurp a title from someone who is at war. The old titleholder will like you less because you took his title. You can not usurp a title that has recently been created or usurped by someone else. If you hover over the usurp button you can see how long you ll have to wait untill you can.

* The usurp title alert will notify you when you can usurp titles held outside your demesne.

• Inheritance: You can inherit a title. When you will get it depends on the inheritance laws that apply.
  
• Using a Casus Belli to press it for yourself: Obviously you can claim a title by pressing a casus belli for it.

Pressing a De Jure Claim

If someone has holdings in your De Jure area, but is not your vassal, you can go to war with him (or his liege) to make him your vassal. After you win the war the old owner will become your vassal. A drawback is that he will not like you because you forced him. If the owner holds a title besides the one you are pressing the De Jure claim on he will not become your vassal. Instead he will "retreat" to his other holdings and give you the title of the area you went to war for. A limitation of De Jure claims are that you can only press a De Jure claim on 1 county at the time.

* If you can press a dejure claim the De Jure Claim-alert will appear at the top of your screen. You do need the duchy title or a vassal with the duchy title to see this popup (De Jure Claims for kingdoms and empires do not show this popup By clicking on it you can see all dejure claims you could press.

Avoiding getting vassals with a bad opinion about you

There actually are 2 ways to avoid getting vassals with a low opinion after pressing a De Jure Claim:

• Pressing the De Jure Claim for one of your vassals: If you are a king or emperor you will probably have vassals with kingdom or duchy titles. You can press De Jure claims for them. Doing so will automatically make the area you claimed a vassal of the duke or king in question. So the guy you went to war with stil hates you, but he s not your vassal, but your vassals vassal. This prevents him from causing problems and makes the vassal you claimed it for have an higher opinion of you.
  
• Pressing the De Jure Claim for someone with a strong or weak claim on it: Another option is getting someone with a weak or strong claim on the de jure area you want to claim in your court. This will allow you to press the De Jure Claim AND replace the current ruler with your claimant. Needless to say the claimant will love you for doing this.

Claim multiple counties at once with a De Jure Claim

If you manage to get someone in your court with a strong or weak claim on a duchy or kingdom, and that duchy or kingdom is a part of your De Jure area, you can claim the entire duchy/kingdom for the claimant. In this case the claimant will also become your vassal.

After reading this you should:

• Be able to find dejure areas of empires, kingdoms and duchies
  
• Know how to create or usurp a title
  
• Be able to press de Jure Claims without suffering an opinion penalty
  
• Know how to press a De Jure Claim on multiple counties at once.

- Author: Two-Piece

Casus Belli - Holy wars

A holy war is the most used religious casus belli. They are easy to use, and let you conquer a lot of land. It is also a decent way to become a pious man, since fighting the infidels rewards you with piety. God has never been this usefull before. "In the name of the Lord we will kill the infidel and take their land!!!!!" (all for me...hehehe)

Who can I declare a holy war on?

Holy wars can be declared on all rulers with another religion, who own lands bordering you or have 2 or less sea tiles between your lands. Catholics and Orthodox religions are an exception. They can not use the holy war casus belli on each other.

A holy war will always be about the titles infidels holds in one single de jure duchy. If you win, you personally get all of the titles within that duchy that the characters you attacked owned.

Enemy Reinforcements

A holy war is a war about religion. Which means characters of the same religion might join the war in defense of their faith. If you don t count on this you can potentially become overwhelmed by infidel armies who decide to join your enemies. The ability to call in people of the same religion is definately a big advantage for the defenders. Attackers are not allowed to do the same.

* Using the religious map mode you can check the religions present around medieval europe. You can use this to see what countries might join your enemy if you attack with a holy war casus belli.

Wrong type of holding

After winning a holy war you will also get the cities and bishoprics. The game gives you a huge income penalty on the city or temple title you're holding. Whether you want to hold on the city or bishopric title anyway is totally up to you.


* If you hold titles that you shouldn't the wrong title alert will show up. Clicking on it will automatically open the corresponding holding



* You can create a vassal in a fast and easy way. Just right-click on the picture of the holding you want to give a new ruler and create a new vassal by clicking create vassal. This will generate someone with your religion and culture, who will now take control of your city or bishopric. This trick only works on cities and bishoprics and not on counties.



After reading this you should:

• Know who are potential targets for holy wars
  
• Know a disadvantage of a holy war is that the defenders can get help from rulers with the same religion
  
• Know the disadvantage of owning a holding of the wrong type
  
• Be able to create a random ruler for a bishopric or city you own

Author: Two-Piece

Casus Belli - Invasion (in the making)

Catholics:Catholic can request the pope to allow them to invade another, larger, Catholic realm and with the Sons of Abraham DLC you request that the pope calls a crusade on another religion(we'll talk more about this in our DLC section) The requirements to request an invasion is that you can afford to lose 500 piety (fancy way of saying it costs 500 piety) you are at peace, the religious authority is at least 50%(checkable in the top right hand of the religion screen) and you have a smaller demesne than they have or you have a claim on their primary title.After all this you still have to have the pope like you a lot more than the other guy for him to give you the invasion CB on the other realm.After all that you must still declare the war when you re ready for it. In the DLC “Sons of Abraham” this was changed slightly too also include that you must control more cardinals then your target although if you have the same number of Cardinals then it defaults back to the pope's opinion.



Example:
In the bookmark “Stamford Bridge” the England area is ripe with Invasions. The current king of England, Harold, is defending against two invasions although one is more like a strong claim war. (All three combatants get event spawned troops)

• William the B@astard from Normandy is using our pope invasion CB to take all of England from Harold
  
• Also from the North-ish area of England the Norwegian King Harald is using his strong claim on the Kingdom of England to take England.

A common thing to see happen is that either Harald or William will take the kingdom then the other will defeat them and take the kingdom. Although by this point they will all have basically no troops and will either get defeated by either independence or put Harold back in power factions. But there is one more character that has a claim on England. Can you guess who it is???It’s the Danish king Svend II has a weak claim on the kingdom. And based on what you just found out on weak claims you know he can press is at the start. Although the AI rarely does that.


Muslims: Muslims can invade other rulers that have a different true faith (way of saying other religions including heresies) claiming an entire neighboring kingdom. Although others that follow the defenders faith can’t be called in like holy wars.The invasion CB is very powerful CB able to claim entire kingdoms in one war, or even more. When you or the Ai win an invasion you personally take all occupied territory so if you have the patience you can take all the counties capital(first holding/main holding) and wipe out an entire empire in ONE war and who doesn't like taking over the entire Holy Roman Empire in one war without a claim.

After this you should:

• Know how to call Invasions
  
• Know the difference between Catholic and Muslim Invasions
  
• Know how to "game the system" to get more then what is intended from the CB.

Possibly new vocabulary and terms:

• gaming the system: Manipulating certain rules or outcomes to usually get a better outcome.
  
• Religious Authority: A rough measure on how strong your faith is.

Author: ℳɑℵƐɳƮɨɳʊᎦ

Casus Belli - Excommunicated Ruler (looking for volunteer to write)

Factions - Rebelling against your liege

You can t win every war. So you might end up being someone's vassal. Maybe you get a cool regent who gives a party every year and let you do whatever you feel like. But it s more likely that he s a greedy bastard who wants to control you and meddle in all kinds of affairs you d rather not have him meddling in. You might decide you would rather have another person ruling over you, maybe you want to become independant so your liege can t mess with you anymore, maybe you want him to give you more freedom and lower the crown laws. All likely situations to happen. But what are you going to do about it? He has an army five times the size of your army, no way you can defeat him alone. This is where you need help from people in the same situation as you are; vassals of the same liege. You should create a powerfull faction and demand that your liege grants you your request...If he refuses you will declare war on him and do it the hard way!!!


Joining someone's faction

If you go the the faction menu you can instantly see the factions that are currently being formed. You can join them by clicking on the green arrow (1) or leave a faction you joined by clicking on a red arrow (2). You can join as many factions as you d like.

If the one that started the faction, the faction leader (3), thinks the faction has sufficient military power rating (4) to make their demand he will send an ultimatum to your liege. Your liege can do two things. He can agree with the factions demand or he can't (D'uh). If he decides not to enforce the factions demand it means war.









Faction wars and total chaos

A war against a faction can become chaotic very fast. It can be really hard to get an overview of what is really happening. These things commonly happen during a faction revolt.

• Everyone in the faction will declare war on their liege. Factions become independant from their liege for the duration of the war.
  
• The people who revolted against their liege will be able to call in theit allies to help them, the liege can do the same.
  
• As the war goes on your liege should lose troops in the fighting, this means his military power becomes smaller, this means that the military power rating of other factions will rise, potentially giving smaller faction the opportunity to send an ultimatum.
  
• If there is a war going on to change the ruler, outsiders with weak claims on the disputed title might join in to press their weak claims. Those outsiders will be agressive toward your former liege, but also to the ones revolting.
  
• Outsiders might also declare war on the people who are revolting with their liege. Because they became independant they are temporary not under the protecting of their liege. Making them easy targets for outsiders. The outsiders do need to finish that specific war before the revolt ends. Otherwise that war ends without result (inconclusive). This is a often used strategie by players to get lands from someone who is normally too strong for them to take on.
  
• In a short summary: Total chaos

Creating a Faction

You can also create up to 2 factions yourself. In this case you will be the faction leader. That means YOU decide when the ultimatum is sent to your liege. This is obviously a big advantage compared to having someone else start a war at an inconvenient time. To do this just press the start a faction-button (5). The screen after that will show a list of what faction you can potentially create. Doing this is self-explanatory really. Later in this guide we ll go into detail of the casus belli available for factions.

Sending an ultimatum

* To send your ultimatum to your liege click on the faction button or the "New Important Decisions Are Available"-alert. In the screen that opens you can use a decision with a golden background to make your demand

Getting people to join your faction

If you re all alone in a faction there is not much of a point to create it. So you will need likeminded people to join you. There are roughly 3 ways to get people to join your faction:

• They like the idea of whatever the faction wants to achieve. Those people will automatically join your faction.
  
• They like you much better than their liege and decide to assist you.
  
• Your spymaster convinces other vassals of your liege to join your faction.

* If you send a spymaster to scheme at a vassal of your liege, while you created a faction, he will try to convince (more: blackmail) him into joining your faction. The frequency on which this happens depends on your spymasters intrigue skill. You can do this by clicking the council button and then on the scheme button of your spymaster. Click on the map where you want to place him










After reading this you should:

• Know how to create and join factions
  
• Know how to send an ultimatum as faction leader
  
• Be able to get people to join your faction
  
• Know about the chaos and risks involved in being at war with your liege

- Author: Two-Piece

Factions - Dealing with troubles from your vassals

The ability to conspire against their lieges is a blessing for vassals, but can be a hell for lieges. Ask any Crusader Kings 2-player and they will verify this. Dealing with rebelling factions is one of the most challenging parts of the game. I have to admit they still cause me a lot of trouble too sometimes. But losing against a faction isn t the end of the world, there is always an opportunity to make a comeback sooner or later. So endure it and patiently await your opportunity.

Preventing factions

To prevent factions from being created you should have a strong military, be a nice guy and have your vassals well organised. A few tips to avoid factions.

• Limit your vassals power: Keep in mind that in order to create an ultimatum a vassal will need a certain military power rating. So if one vassal is very powerfull, a faction can gain a lot of military power if that vassal joins. This will make it easier to create a successful faction that can make an ultimatum. This is what you want to avoid. So try to make sure people do not become too powerfull. You can do this by not giving them a lot of titles, revoking titles from them when the situation or find another more creative solution to the problem.
  
• Make sure you have a large military. Having raised retinues definately helps here (but you need to have the legacy of rome dlc for that). Upgrading buildings in your holdings helps as well. By having a big military you make it harder for factions to have enough faction power to revolt. So you re not really preventing factions from forming with this strategy, but you are preventing the factions from presenting you an ultimatum.
  
• Traits: Certain traits cause the likehood of vassals rebelling against you. Here's a list with how much more likely the traits make it for the vassal to creates or join a faction compared to characters without traits:
  
  • (Proud (150%)
    
  • Brave (150%)
    
  • Arbitrary (150%)
    
  • Envious (200%)
    
  • Greedy (200%)
    
  • Impaler (200%)
    
  • Deceitful (200%)
    
  • Ambitious (400%)
  Others traits cause them to make them more unlikely to rebel. Here s a list how likely they are to rebel compared to a character without traits.
  
  • Content (1%)
    
  • Imbecile (1%)
    
  • Inbred (1%)
    
  • Craven (10%)
    
  • Slow (20%)
    
  • Kind (50%)
    
  • Charitable (50%)
    
  • Honest (50%)
    
  • Humble (75%)
    
  • Just (75%)
• Make sure your vassals have a good opinion about you. Important factors for their opinions about you are:
  
  • There are traits a ruler can have that will make their vassals have an higher opinion of him. Positive traits are: crusader, brave, just. Negative traits are: craven, arbitrary, being female, having a female heir. I m sure there are more traits that should be in this list if you know them please make a comment on this guide and I ll check and add them.
    
  • Laws: Depending on what laws are present in your realm vassals might have a higher or lower opinion of you.
• Try to get vassals that have the same religious and cultural background as you. Having the same culture and religion prevents opinion penalties and certain factions to be created.
  
• Send your spymaster to discourage factionalism. You can send your spymaster to scheme at one of your vassals. This will create a popup asking you how you want to deal with them. This works exactly the same as getting people to join your faction as described in "Factions - Rebelling against your liege".

* This is what happens to your vassal when he is being discouraged from forming a faction by your spymaster.

• I will try to give some explanation about why certain factions form in the descriptions of the faction casus belli.

Dealing with ultimatums

When your vassals presents you an ultimatum you should pause the game and take a look at the current situation.

If you are in another war which isn t going to well you might want to grant the vassals their demand (depending on what that is of course). The same is true if you think you cannot handle your vassals and their allies revolting against you.

If you decide to go to war with your vassals you should think about how you are going to deal with them and their allies. Especially take a good look at your financial situation (you might have to hire mercenaries) and if your allies are likely to help you. Also keep an eye on your remaining troops. If you don t have enough left other factions might try to revolt too.

After winning a revolt

After you win the war the vassals that revolted against you will be locked in your prison. The dumbest thing you can do at this point is release them. They might just revolt again. A few suggestion what you could/should do:

• Ransom them for money. This is a nice addition to your treasury. But the prisoner does need to have enough money to pay for it.
  
• Revoke one of his titles You can do this without an opinion penalty from your other vassals because the prisoner acted dishonourable towards you. You can only revoke 1 title from a prisoner without the vassal opinion penalty. The person you revoked a title from will have a -80 opinion of you. He will remain imprisoned after doing this.
  
• Keep them in prison. you can just keep your vassal in prison. Vassals who are imprisoned have a regent. This means he can t join a faction against you as long as you hold him imprisoned. Besides that you might get an event to torture him (if that is your thing) and speed up his demise.

After reading this you should:

• Know how to discourage factions from forming.
  
• Be able to decide if you accept an ultimatum or go to war with your factions
  
• Be able to create a more stable country after a faction-revolt

- Two-Piece

Data Source: CKII wiki - Factions[www.ckiiwiki.com]

Faction Casus Belli - Independance

People who disagree with their liege on many things do not like being his vassal. It is likely that they will form a group that demands freedom. An independance faction! If an independance faction gets what they want all the people that joined it will become independant from their liege. If their liege has another liege above him the independance faction members will become their vassal.

Preventing independance factions
Some vassals are more likely to demand independance than others. In the most common cases the vassals have:

• Other religions. If a ruler has different religion than his liege he won t like it and want for independance. Those people are quite easy to deal with. If they like you enough you can demand religious conversion of him so he adopts your religion.
  
  * If you go to the diplomacy menu you can demand religious conversion from people in your court or your vassals. As long as they have a good opinion about you they will accept it.
  
  
  
  
  
  * By clicking on your priests proseletyze button, you can send him somewhere to convert the people who live there to your religion.
  
  
• Other culture. Vassals also tend to want independence if they have a different culture from their liege. Dealing with this is a bit harder.
  
  • If you re a king ruling over a count with a different religion, you could transfer vasselage of this county vassal to a duke that you like. In this situation your problem becomes your duke's problem.
    
  • Another way to deal with it is making sure a young heir of the current ruler will have your culture. You can do this by letting him be educated by someone with your culture. After changing the heir's culture it s just a matter of making sure the current ruler dies (plots usually work very well on people with another culture).
  * To educate a child go to the diplomacy menu of the child you want to educate (1). The child has to be 6 years or older to educate him. Click educate child. Click the empty portrait (2) and select one of your vassals or court with you culture to educate him (4). The opinion of the childs liege (3) of you will affect if he would accept this.
  
  
• Great distance from the capital. Being far away from their liege vassals don t really have the feeling they own allegiance to him. There is no way to really avoid these people from joining a faction against you.

After this you should:

• Recognise vassals that might form an indepenence faction
  
• Be able to prevent most independense factions from forming
  
• Know how to propose to educate a vassals heir at young age (6 - 16 years) by a specific guardian.
  
• Demand religious conversion from your vassals.
  
• Send a priest to convert people to your religion

- Author: Two-Piece

Faction Casus Belli - Change Crown Authority

Crown authority factions are factions that demand you to lower the crown authority in your country. There is not a lot to say about them, really.

What is crown authority

Crown authority is the regime your vassals are under. It will define the rules within your country. it will affect what the obligations of vassals are. Think about obligations like the amount of tax you have to pay, the amount of troops you have to supply your liege, if you are allowed to have wars for titles within the country and if titles can be inherited outside the realm.

When crown authority factions form

Crown authority factions form faster if your crown authority is higher. So having a low crown authority greatly reduces the factions that will form. Another factor is the vassals opinion of you (as is the case in every faction).

If you re playing as someone's vassal it s probably smart to keep crown authority as low as possible. It is especially important if your liege does not allow you to fight other vassals. Because this leaves you in a spot where you can barely improve your situation.

How to deal with crown authority ultimatums

Getting an ultimatum from a crown authority faction is pretty straightforward. If you think you can handle them, fight them. If it s a real inconvenient moment just take your loss and lower your crown authority. Your heir will probably get his chance to raise the crown authority again.

After reading this you should:

• Know why someone would want to start a crown authority faction.

-Author: Two-Piece

Faction Casus Belli - Change Liege

Liege changes are undesirable if you are the liege. Therefore a war to change the ruler is something you should avoid at all costs. For newer and veteran players alike people with claims on your titles can be quite troubling. This casus belli can be a blessing for vassals, but a disaster for lieges.

When change liege factions form

So when do change liege factions form? The answer is probably a lot more obvious than you would think. Change liege factions form if people like someone who has a claim on the throne (who this will be partly depends on the succession laws in place) better than the current ruler (usually you). This usually happens when an old ruler dies and his heir takes over. If you think about it this is no big surprise. When an old ruler dies:

• The vassals of the new ruler will have a short rule opinion penalty instead of an opinion bonus of their liege. All opinion effects that were created when the old ruler was in charge will also disappear (from feasts, granted titles, etc.).
  
• New heirs with strong claims are likely to be generated. These would usually be the brothers of the new ruler. So more people to create a faction for.

Preventing change liege factions from forming

With this knowledge you should know how to prevent change liege factions from forming. Make sure the vassals will like their future ruler better than the new claimants that will be created!!! You can do this by educating your heir to have awesome traits, that will make him beloved by everyone. AND you have to educate his brothers/sisters, who will get a claim after you die, to be less likeable. Of course there is no guarantee, because there will be problems if your heir dies, but I found this to be the best way to deal with this issue.

Another way of dealing with them is killing the person they are trying to put in power. Simple, yet very effective. You can also do this after you declared war on the vassals that wanted to revolt. If he dies, the war will end because you destroyed the casus belli for it.

Dealing with liege factions ultimatums

If someone presents you an ultimatum to depose you and install another ruler you will most likely go to war with them and show them by force who rules the country. But because of the somewhat predictable character, you can predict when change liege factions will form. So the best tip I can give is to make sure you own enough money to hire some mercenaries before an ultimatum will be presented.

After reading this you should be able to:

• Know when change liege factions will form
  
• Know how you can prevent change liege factions from forming

- Author: Two-Piece

Faction Casus Belli - Change inheritance law (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Diplomacy - Allies

Before you go to war you might want to have a look at what will happen when a war would start. You would not want some emperor suddenly joining your enemy in a war. Predicting who will join you or your enemy can be a crucial skill if you want to be successfull.

Making allies

In Crusader Kings 2 alliances are made by joining 2 bloodlines together: marriages. After a marriage brothers, sisters and fathers of the in-laws will become an ally. So keep in mind someone could also arrange a marriage and make an alliance while he is in a war.

Another type of allies are people with the same dynasty. You can recognise people with your dynasty by a drop of blood on their portrait.


* If you select a character and go to the allies tab you can see the allies a ruler has. It will also show the opinion of the allies of the selected ruler on the right.

To see the ally's opinion of you hover over their portraits. Using this you can compare the enemies ally's opinion of you and your enemy. Thus predicting if he will join your enemy in a war.













Allies that can't help you

You may also have allies that can not help you in your wars. In order to join your wars they have to be independant or you both have to be the vassal of the same liege.

When will allies help you

Even if you are allied to someone that doesn t mean they will always join your wars. Factors that determine if he will join you are:

• His opinion of you and your enemy. It s really simple. If an ally likes your enemy more than you, he would never agree to join your war.

* If you open your world view in the opinion-mode you can see the opinion of others about you. Hover over a county you will get detailed information about the opinion of the county's ruler. If you click on some county you can see how everyone else thinks about the ruler of this county. This is usefull if you want to know how your allies think about your enemy.

• Distance from the target of the war. If your war is far away from your allies holdings he would not like traveling all the way over there to help you. resulting in a reluctance to join your war.

Even if an ally decides to join your war, that doesn t always mean they will be usefull. If they have a war of their own to fight that will of course get their priority. The result is not getting the military aid you were hoping for. So having allies can be a bit unreliable, BUT they can also prove to be a big help.

Destroying enemy alliances

Needless to say the marriage alliance system creates interesting opportunities for intrigue and assassinations. Killing the right people might just create a country without allies. Doing this could be immensely helpfull. It is often hard to kill someone with intrigue and assassins fail and cost a lot.

After this you should:

• Be able to create alliances
  
• Know which allies will likely join a future war.
  
• Be able to destroy alliances

- Author: Two-Piece

Wars - Declaring wars, warscore and possible outcomes

Finally, I'm going to tell you how to start and win wars!!! Probably all you really wanted to do in the first place. The information you read before this section is an indication of the infamous "steep learning curve of Crusader Kings 2" (and we are not done yet).

Declaring wars

If you want to declare a war on someone go to the diplomacy menu of the person you want to declare war on. Click on the declare war button. Select the appropriate casus belli and hit send!

Warscore

So yay, you started a war. But how do you win it? That is what the warscore is for. Your goal is to get your warscore to 100%. You can achieve this by:

• Winning battles: If you win a battle against enemy troops your warscore will increase.
  
• Occupying enemy territory: If you occupy holdings in enemy territory by sieging them your warscore will increase. Occupying the holdings your enemy personally owns adds more to the warscore than other holdings.
  
• Occupying the target territory: If you occupy all of the target territory you will get an additional 1.25% warscore each month. Keep in mind that you will lose the entire bonus warscore if the enemy takes back a part of it.
  
• Prisoners: If you get lucky and capture an useful prisoner in a battle and your warscore will increase. Useful prisoners are close family members of the enemy ruler. If you capture the enemy ruler you win by default!!! Capturing family members is not a very common occurance tough.

* If you click on the small warscore icons in the lower right of your screen, you ll open an useful overview. You can use this to check the warscore details, negotiate peace and see the allies that are involved in the war. Next to the warscore you can see who will obtain something if the war is won. This can be an easy way to find the claimant you might want to kill to end a war.

Ending the war

There are 4 ways a war could end:

• Enforce Demands: If you win the war you can enforce the demands you went to war for. Usually you need 100% warscore for this. But sometimes the enemy will accept an enforce demands offer sooner.
  
• White Peace; A white peace is a neutral situation. You can request your enemy to end the war without enforcing the casus belli. In this case the war will end and the one that attacked will suffer a prestige-penalty. Enemies usually accept this if you killed most of their troops.
  
• Surrender: If you surrender the casus will not be enforced and the war will end. But at a heavy price. You will get a prestige penalty, will have to pay the enemy an amount of money (the amount depends on your income) and you will be imprisoned by the enemy. If the warscore reaches -100% you will autmatically surrender.
  
• Invalid Casus Belli: Sometimes the casus belli can become invalid. This can happen if you are pressing a claim for someone, who dies. Or perhaps you re at war to to depose an excommunicated ruler and his excommunication is lifted by the pope. In these cases the war will "suddenly" end without any additional effects.

After reading this you should:

• Be able to declare a war on someone
  
• Know how the warscore works
  
• Know what outcomes a war can have (enforce demands, white peace, surrender or invalid casus belli)

- Author: Two-Piece

Wars - Raising troops (missing 2 screenshots)

To go to war you need to get troops. There are a few different sources you can get them from.

Where troops come form

Troops are drafted from a holdings levy. Another part of the troops will remain in the holding to provide a garisson, people who are left behind to defend your holding. The amount of troops you will get depend on the buildings present in the holding. Another factor is your characters military skill and the location of the holding. The capital county will get a 50% troop bonus and your holdings in your primary duchy (the one your capital is in) will get 25% extra troops.

1. You can recognise your capital by this icon.
2. Sign you don t meet the requirements to build something. In this case the technology level of this county isn t high enough. It s also possible you need to have build specific buildings before building another.
3. The green button means you can build the specific building (hover over the buildings name to see what effects building this specific building will have)
4. Build time
5. Garisson. Troops in the garrison cannot be removed from the holding. Instead they stay to defend it.
6. Levy. Troops you can raise and use in battles.

Different troop suppliers

There are several sources you can get your troops from. These sources are:

• Personal levies: Personal levies are the most reliable troops you can get. You can get them no matter what. The only disadvantage is that you will have to pay for their upkeep.
  
• Levies from your vassals: You can also demand levies from your vassals. The vassals will have to pay for their upkeep. The drawback is that they won t like having to provide you troops and pay for it. That s why they will have a reduced opinion about you if you make use of their troops a lot.The amount of troops you can get is variable. Effects on how many troops you get from their levy depends on their opinion of you, levy laws and the current crown authority.
  
• Retinues: Retinues are troops you can only use if you own the "Legacy of Rome"-DLC. You don t have to pay upkeep for your retinues. Instead you pay a small amount to get a "one man army" that will reinforce itself untill it consists of 500 units. While reinforcing you have to pay a certain upkeep. You can also reinforce at half speed. Reinforcing at half speed is cheaper than fullspeed. The amount of retinue troops you can maximally get, depends on your technology level, country size and ruler type (emperor, king or duke).
  
• Mercenaries: Mercenaries are troops you can hire. This can be very usefull if you are not powerfull enough to deal with someone. The big disadvantage is, as you would expect, that they cost a lot of money to hire. You will have to pay an inital fee to hire them and after that you still have to pay upkeep. If you can t pay them, because you don t have enough money they will turn against you and attack and take a holding you own instead.
  
• Holy orders: Holy orders are troops that you can hire for religious wars. They will not aid you in battles against people of your religion. The big advantage is that they are fairly cheap. They cost you some piety to hire instead of money. You will only have to pay an initial fee for hiring holy orders. So you won t have to pay for them monthly after hiring the holy order.

How to raise troops

There are a few ways to raise your own or your levies troops. I will go into detail about two of them:

• Raising all your troops, all vassals troops, mercenaries, retinues and holy orders. If you want to raise all your troops go to the military menu and click on the raise troops button. Holy orders, retinues and mercenaries can be raised in the miltary screen.
  
• Raising troops one vassal/holding at the time. If you own a huige empire you might not want to raise all troops at the same time. Maybe because of the opinion penalties or maybe because they will simply spawn too far away from your target area and you do not really need them.

* scr raise troops
* scr raise from holding

Wars - Transporting troops oversea (missing 1 screenshot)

What boats are good for

The normal way of transporting your troops is letting them walk. But you could also make use of boats to take a shortcut or to transport your troops faster. One boat can only carry a limited amount of troops. Each boat can hold 100 units. Boats can never engage each other in combat. The major disadvantage of using boats is that they have high upkeep costs. Of course you could use your vassals boats for free....

Loading/Unloading troops in owned territory

If you move the troops to where your boats are docked you can load the troops in your boat by using the load troops into a boat button. Do keep in mind that your fleet will have to be merged and big enough to transport the troops.





Unloading your troops on lands you own yourself is really easy. Just select the boats loaded with troops and click their destination. The boats will automatically unload your troops once they arrive. Troops will only have 50% morale after landing and there is a huge attacking from see penalty. So make sure there are no enemy troops present when your boat docks.

Loading/Unloading troops outside your territory

you can not dock your boats on a coast outside of your country. Instead you will have to select your troops and click the sea in which you have boats. Troops will move onto the boats then, just like they would move over land.

To unload troops from a boat select the boat, click on the box that represent your troops and move them to land.

* scr-shot load troops outs terr

Battles - Basic mechanics (missing 1 screenshot)

One of the least familiar features of crusader kings 2 are the battle mechanics. Probably because it is hard to find out how it works. And the fact that you can not infuence your troop composition a whole lot. I will hower try to explain it as well as I can.

Battle formula

your army is composed of units; archers, heavy infantry, cavalry, etc.. Those units have attack values and defence values (they will be specified in the Battles - Units section). An army is made up from a lot of those individual troops.

Those troops are divided between one two or three flanks. By adding the attack values of the troops within a flank, you will get an attack value for a flank.

scr flank

The total attack value will be divided based on the composition of the defending flank. Then the amount of casualties each flank receives will be calculated with the formula:
0.015 * Attack value / Unit defence value = damage suffered a day by a specific unit
This formula can be used to calculate casualties for both sides.

Example: An attacking army generates 10 000 damage If a defending army consists for 23% out of archers, the archers will receive 0.23 * 10 000 = 2 300 damage. If we apply the formula to it we know exactly how many archers we will lose in a day of battle: Using the formula results into: 0.15 * 2300 / 3 = 115. So the defender will lose 115 archers on that day.

Battle phases

During a battle attack and defence values do not stay the same. they change because units die and there are different defence and attack values for units in each battle phase. There are three battlephases:

• Skirmish: When armies clash you will always start in the skyrmish phase. This is when armies will approach eachother and the battle will start. This phase will last around 14 days.
  
• Melee: After the skyrmish phase the melee phase will start. This is when the troops will actually clash in a battle.
  
• Pursue: After the morale of an army goes below 25% they will flee. The pursue phase will start. one army will chase the routing army and try to kill as many as possible.

After reading this you should

• Have a general idea how attack damage is calculated
  
• Know about the three battlephases

Source: A post on the paradox forums[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Battles - Morale (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Battles - Troop types (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Battles - Generals (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Battle - Tactics (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Battles - Terrain (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Diplomacy - Organizing your country (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Succession Laws - Succession Laws

One feature in the game are succession laws. These laws decide who will inherit a title. This is very important because you want to hand over as many titles as you can to your successor after your inevitable death.

The succession laws are divided into two parts: gender laws and the succession law-type. In gender laws the status of woman within your realm is described. There are 3 possible gender laws:

• Agnatic Succession: With agnatic succession only men can inherit titles. So if you have any daughters, they can never ever inherit one of your titles. This is beneficial if you marry your daughter to a foreign lord for diplomatic reason (an alliance). The advantage is that the foreign lord can not use intrigue to get hold of your titles. Simple because his wife will never be able to inherit a title. Even if he assassinates your entire family.
  
• Absolute Cognatic: With Cognatic succession women have the same rights as men. This means they can inherit on the same grounds man do.
  
• Agnatic-Cognatic Succession: Agnatic-Cognatic inheritance is a gender law inbetween cognatic and agnatic. In this case woman can inherit titles but only if there are no male heirs available. So if she ever gains a little brother he will be the heir and she will not receive any titles.

The other part of succession laws, the inheritance law-type, decides what people qualify to inherit titles. Those laws will individually be discussed in detail in the next sections of this guide. The possible succession laws are:

• Primogeniture
  
• Ultimogeniture
  
• Gavelkind
  
• Tanistry
  
• Seniority
  
• Elective Monarchy
  
• Seniority

After reading this you should:

• Know how agnic, cognatic and agnatic-cognatic succession laws work
  
• Know there are various laws (of which only one can be active at the time) that define who are eligible heirs.

Author: Two-Piece

Succession Laws - Primogeniture (in the making)

Primogeniture Succession

Primgeniture succession is one of the succession types. With primogeniture, the first born man (if no man, the it would be a women) inherits. If the first born is dead, but he left a child behind, then that child would inherit all titles. However, if he didn't leave a child, then the second born man would inherit. Changing this law takes you having high or absolute crown authority. Primogeniture succession also gives you a -5 opinion modifier with all your vassals and dynasty members (except the successor.)

Author - finnishdude101

Succession Laws - Ultimogeniture (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Succession Laws - Elective Monarchy (in the making)

Elective Monarchy Succession

Elective Monarchy is a bit more complex than other types.

Succession Laws - Tanistry (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Succession Laws - Gavelkind (in the making)

Gavelkind Succession

Gavelkind succession means that your titles will be split among your children, depending on your gender laws. A good way to figure out how these titles will be split is thinking of a deck of cards. This deck of cards is stacked from highest ranking titles on top (pretend the capital is stuck to the first card) and lowest on bottom. Then pretend you "deal" these titles out. For example, I am King of France, England, and Brittany, and Count of Paris. I have two children. My firstborn will become the King of England and France and Count of Paris.

Author - finnishdude101

Succession Laws - Seniority (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Religion - Moral authority (in the making)

Moral authority is essentially a measure of how much authority the leaders of that religion have over the members of that religion. If moral authority gets too low, then heresies are more likely to appear.

Author - finnishdude101

Religion - Reforming a religion (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Intrigue - Killing people (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Intrigue - Plots (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Intrigue plots - Revoke title (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Intrigue plots - Kill your wife (looking for volunteers to write this section)

Intrigue plots - Kill someone to inherit a title (looking for volunteers to write this section)

[HipoApo377]

not reading all that

[fyredestroyer]

I would suggest writing a small guide about how to set up to inherit a title under the Diplo tag before the "Kill someone to inherit title"

[Thran]

This is a very good guide. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

[FINAL_B]

Thanks.

["MD"]

Ok

[gasiousgiant]

Typo: -Athor: Two-Piece

[The Harambe ressurectionist]

The kingdom of Mumu is the best faction to start with. There are plenty of weaker kingdoms around you to practice conquering, and Ireland is isolated and small.

[sgalanter]

Incredibly detailed and thorough. Thank you for this excellent guide.

[Two-Piece]

@Nicen Jehr looks like they changed Ireland around a bit (the guide is pretty old). On a first glance the petty kingdom of Mumu might be a good alternative.

[NicenJehr]

>For people who are still getting familiar with the game I recommend starting as the Duke of Munster in Ireland in 1066 AD, Stamford Bridge.

do you mean Ulster? cant find this guy or a "Stamford Bridge" bookmark