Help with Ireland tutorial start

[Banyan42]

So, I conquered Ireland. It took awhile, and I made some mistakes, but I finally did it. I even took a territory or two off Scotland while they were distracted by some Norwegian invaders. Things were going swimmingly. I made the Kingdom title and everything. I was grooming an heir and got the son I wanted to inherit to take over after my King died.

That's where it all went down the tubes. I pictured some baton relay handoff and Me v. 2.0 would be kicking in the palace door of the Scottish king in nothing flat. Alas, twas not to be.

It took me a bit to figure out why my kingdom got carved up, but I figured it would be a good exercise to take everything back again. So I did. It was a hell of a lot harder. I'm very terrible at running rulers with a focus other than martial.

Then that guy died, and things were better afterwards, but still felt like I lost half of my stuff, but then my game devolved into a bunch of vassals thrashing back and forth.

So...what? I keep conquering Ireland over and over? Scotland and England leave me alone, but they're superpowers now and while I can keep them out, I don't see myself taking them over, ever.

Is that it? Pick a different area and rinse and repeat? I'm fine with that. I had a blast so far, I just wasn't expecting to hit such a wall upon my character's death.

P.S. Are the other focuses just as strong as martial, and I just don't know how to play them?

[The Drunken Donkey]

Every single one is good try going knowledge you can unlock tec faster live longer also a geeat bonus is the religious line making it easier and more benificial to change your religion tenets the 20 % buff to lifestye exsperiance is pretry epic

[Team Triss]

All of my playtime has been Ireland; first the tutorial, then my own games.

I do so well as Murchad, then the moment he dies it gets fragmented to hell and I lose all my taxes and levies because everybody and their brother (literally) gets a slice of the pie.

[Dayve]

I haven't played as Ireland yet so I don't know if they get some sort of unique succession law that harshly carves up the kingdom between your sons when you die, but most places have the partition law. The way it works is:

You are the king of Ireland, you have the titles king of Ireland, county of X, county of Y, county of Z. You have 3 sons. You die.

Son 1 gets the kingdom of Ireland + county of X.

Son 2 gets county of Y.

Son 3 gets county of Z.

The kingdom of Ireland stays whole, son 1 is the king, sons 2 and 3 are his vassals (but may hate him and may rebel against him and/or try to murder him, his wife and all of his sons so they can have the kingdom title for themselves).

Ireland shouldn't be totally splitting up when you die (unless they have some kind of unique succession law that I don't know about).

As for the other lifestyle trees - they're all extremely useful in their own way. I particularly like stewardship (the green one) when playing as a small realm, you can get a hell of a lot of money from that one. The diplomacy one allows you to manipulate opinions very well, the learning one allows you to go celibate (you can go celibate after you have one son and no other sons will inherit any of your land).

Also, each son getting a slice of the pie when you die was a medieval reality. Primogeniture (one son inherits, the rest get nothing) didn't come until the 13th century-ish.

[Jonny*Combat]

I went 200 years as Ireland until an unscrupulous daughter basically killed off all her siblings (she castrated the heir to the throne somehow) and alienated all our allies because she was just such an awful person in every way. I got left with Thomond and Dublin and enemies everywhere and it just kind of ended like a wet fart.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2218486610

Second attempt, horrible failure. Third attempt horrible failure. Great fun, learning with every failure and my Wessex play through is going okay (fourth attempt).

The Tom Selleck lineage thus far seems pretty resilient, but give that 50 years and they'll probably all be inbred hicks killing each other off left right and centre. Pretty accurate really.

[Dayve]

Originally posted by Wavehopper:

I went 200 years as Ireland until an unscrupulous daughter basically killed off all her siblings (she castrated the heir to the throne somehow) and alienated all our allies because she was just such an awful person in every way. I got left with Thomond and Dublin and enemies everywhere and it just kind of ended like a wet fart.

Second attempt, horrible failure. Third attempt horrible failure. Great fun, learning with every failure and my Wessex play through is going okay (fourth attempt).

The Tom Selleck lineage thus far seems pretty resilient, but give that 50 years and they'll probably all be inbred hicks killing each other off left right and centre. Pretty accurate really.

Yeah that sounds 100% historically accurate to me.

I'm not sure that Ireland is the best place for beginners anyway. I think the best place now might be a vassal count of a large realm like France, Byzantine Empire, something like that.

[Banyan42]

@Dayve The kingdom stays whole, but the 4 or so counties fragmented, and it seemed most of them hated my heir. I figured I needed to get that fixed and retake all the counties again before I could do anything else. Are you supposed to operate with just one or two counties all the time? Is it okay to just let them hate your guts? Also, I found out the hard way that its bad to give your heir land before you die because he lost the capital. It was a mess. I'm a terrible king.

[Team Triss]

Originally posted by Dayve:

I haven't played as Ireland yet so I don't know if they get some sort of unique succession law that harshly carves up the kingdom between your sons when you die, but most places have the partition law. The way it works is:

You are the king of Ireland, you have the titles king of Ireland, county of X, county of Y, county of Z. You have 3 sons. You die.

Son 1 gets the kingdom of Ireland + county of X.

Son 2 gets county of Y.

Son 3 gets county of Z.

The kingdom of Ireland stays whole, son 1 is the king, sons 2 and 3 are his vassals (but may hate him and may rebel against him and/or try to murder him, his wife and all of his sons so they can have the kingdom title for themselves).

Ireland shouldn't be totally splitting up when you die (unless they have some kind of unique succession law that I don't know about).

As for the other lifestyle trees - they're all extremely useful in their own way. I particularly like stewardship (the green one) when playing as a small realm, you can get a hell of a lot of money from that one. The diplomacy one allows you to manipulate opinions very well, the learning one allows you to go celibate (you can go celibate after you have one son and no other sons will inherit any of your land).

Also, each son getting a slice of the pie when you die was a medieval reality. Primogeniture (one son inherits, the rest get nothing) didn't come until the 13th century-ish.

It's just normal Confederate Partition, but going from directly owning land to having 100 vassals really hurts the income and levy.

My biggest gripe with the game is it doesn't give an adequate explanation for various De Jure relationships. When I start Ireland as the Petty King of Munster, I have a claim to the county due south, Desmond. Pressing this claim via war says it gets me the county, but the ruler remains as my vassal. Meanwhile, if I fabricate a claim, the verbiage is almost the same and the way declaration page says the ruler remains as my vassal, yet I own it afterwards.

And I can't figure out any of the succession laws. It says my primary heir gets my primary title and any De Jure titles associated with it, so if I King of Ireland is my primary title, how does my heir not inherit all of the duchy titles under it, and all the county titles under that? Why does that get partitioned?

[Dayve]

Originally posted by LoR Team Triss:

And I can't figure out any of the succession laws. It says my primary heir gets my primary title and any De Jure titles associated with it, so if I King of Ireland is my primary title, how does my heir not inherit all of the duchy titles under it, and all the county titles under that? Why does that get partitioned?

Because it's still the dark ages and the complex governing bureaucracies and state institutions that upheld the Pax Romana and the stability and peace of Europe are nothing more than memories. Now everyone is primitive and this partition thing is the best they can come up with to govern land. All your sons have to get something unless there is nothing to get, like if you have 3 counties and 4 sons then obviously one son has to get nothing because there's nothing to get. Later you can get better succession laws.

As for your other claim confusion, I can help you understand. Your claim on the county of Desmond is a ducal claim. You're the Duke of Munster and the county of Desmond is rightfully a part of your realm, so you can declare war to make him your vassal. You don't necessarily have a personal claim to the land though, that's a different thing.

[Team Triss]

Originally posted by Dayve:

As for your other claim confusion, I can help you understand. Your claim on the county of Desmond is a ducal claim. You're the Duke of Munster and the county of Desmond is rightfully a part of your realm, so you can declare war to make him your vassal. You don't necessarily have a personal claim to the land though, that's a different thing.

I did eventually figure out the difference with that, although I think there's a bug there. Like I said, in the war screen it shows he'll be your vassal even if you're declaring war based on your claim to the title, not the land.

[Banyan42]

Who should I care about arranging marriages for? Just children? Courtiers from my house? All courtiers? Random knights?

If there is no marriage that seems to give you any sort of advantage, should you let them stay single, hanging onto them like trading cards? For how long?

During my last game, I was so overwhelmed trying to learn other stuff, I tended to only arrange a marriage when I was specifically trying for an alliance, so lots of my folks married very late or died single.

[District 5]

Well.... considering the game isn't focusing solely on conquest, it's not too surprising that the actual conquering isn't conducive towards total map domination. But there are elements you can utilize too. For example, defeating a superpower is about more than just beating their military. If you notice that their marshal/king is someone who is a particular threat, then try having them killed or try waiting for them to die.

Additionally, you can try grabbing an alliance and calling them in to aid.

[Dayve]

Originally posted by Banyan42:

Who should I care about arranging marriages for? Just children? Courtiers from my house? All courtiers? Random knights?

If there is no marriage that seems to give you any sort of advantage, should you let them stay single, hanging onto them like trading cards? For how long?

During my last game, I was so overwhelmed trying to learn other stuff, I tended to only arrange a marriage when I was specifically trying for an alliance, so lots of my folks married very late or died single.

You can marry away all of your daughters for alliances, even to minor barons if nobody else is available. There's no reason not to.

Courtiers and knights don't need to marry, there's no real reason to ever let them have children that'll just clog up your court and create more shenanigans later.

The main thing is your male heir. Get him married as soon as he hits 16 to a good wife with a good alliance.

[Banyan42]

@Ragnola Yeah, I tend to fall into the trap of thinking its a game of military conquest with some fluff around the edges, because of habits from other strategy games. The more I play, the more I see that's not the case. Its super cool, I just don't have the hang of it yet.

@Dayve Thanks for all the advice, its been a big help. What about sons that aren't your heir? Keep one in your back pocket just in case? Marry 'em up and give 'em land?

Lastly, do you give a powerful vassal that has terrible skills a seat on the council, or give it to some nobody that's really good at the job? Case by case basis, I guess?

[Daergar]

Originally posted by Banyan42:

Lastly, do you give a powerful vassal that has terrible skills a seat on the council, or give it to some nobody that's really good at the job? Case by case basis, I guess?

One of the few things I realized quickly was to try and ignore the "powerful vassal wants a seat on the council" gripe. Your council positions are so damn crucial that it's almost physically painful to have a dud in one of the slots.

Though not as painful as your heir having the traits Shy and Just, which apparently is a recipe for not doing schemes (35 stress penalty for every single personal scheme).

[Banyan42]

Makes sense. At first I was really worried when important people had a negative opinion, but it doesn't feel like it matters much until it gets worse than -60 or so. Maybe I'm wrong on that. I'm having trouble paying attention to everything at once.

As an afterthought, I think this is the only gave I've ever played this badly and still had a ton of fun with.