WHEN RULER DIES FACTIONS starts war HELP

[DracoHoribilis]

Dosent matter if am a kingdom or an empire, the ruler dies, everyone starts a war with me. Usually three or four different factions wich decimates my levies and there is no way to survive

[Icen]

This is usually the case if you have strong vassals. You can prevent this from happening by having a large powerbase i.e. developing your capital, recruiting men-at-arms, having strong allies or having good relations with them. In the short term, it might be a good idea to surrender to the strongest of them? You can always regain that land later, and it shouldn't be too hard when you can organise your kingdom/empire.

[freezray]

Everything the other guy said was valid i'm just adding...

- Try to always have around 5000 in cash towards the end of you current rulers life for mercenaries(kingdom/empire level).

- Don't let your vassals get more than one duchy.

- Its almost better to preemptively start to faction wars so that you can strip you vassals of unnecessary titles.

- If you've got prisoners at the start of the new ruler then start beheading fools(preferably infidels) because dread will save you a lot of headaches.

- Take the first intrigue legacy because +15 permanent dread can go a long way especially if you character is an intrigue build.

[teron]

Things that keep people out of factions:
80+ Opinion of you
Already in house arrest/jail
Ruler is a child (under 16)
Allies
Strong hook

Basically build your powerbase as much as possible, e.g. gold/Man at Arms and then levies. Since that gives you time to make powerful vassals like you. Also if you can toss powerful vassals in jail due to them being bad before your ruler dies, do that and just leave them there.

[Bordric]

Succession was always a dangerous time, England is a good example. You have to prepare for it, if your ruler is old and have daughters or sons don't marry them off let your heir do it to form strong alliance. The rest has been said mostly, gold always gold and good spymaster.

Its part of the fun for me, surviving the succession and putting my new rulers arse in the seat for life.

[DracoHoribilis]

Intresting, might give the game a second go then.
I have 100+ relations with the vassals but they still want to put the rulers siblings on the throne, so it dosent seem to work, but I never really played around with dread, I always release the prisoners to show mercy or be good, but guess that is a mistake.

I always experience that they take advantage of crusades, I never had a simple crusade when someone or something dosent invade me during the time my armies are deployed.

[DracoHoribilis]

Ok so I surrendered to all wars, lost a lot of land and stuff, executed all the prisoners and the rest of the people wanting to revolt, started obeying... nice :D, I also added dread, seems it does magic. Apparently being a good ruler is not playable when ruling an empire

[Hemnlyr]

Originally posted by DracoHoribilis:

Ok so I surrendered to all wars, lost a lot of land and stuff, executed all the prisoners and the rest of the people wanting to revolt, started obeying... nice :D, I also added dread, seems it does magic. Apparently being a good ruler is not playable when ruling an empire

CK3 punishes you for holding a large empire, which can be quite annoying. As teron mentioned above, if you are allied to your more powerful vassals they cannot join factions against you. It may not be possible if you don't have the necessary relatives but try adding arrange marriage alliances to your 'to do' list upon succession.

[endymionologist]

If you know who your heir will be while they are still a child, you can land them and get them a betrothal to a strong outside ally or strong vassal. When the marriage goes through, they will get the alliance too, and carry that alliance through succession. As a vassal, they will make additional alliances using your grandchildren, but instead of getting the cool powerful alliances that a human player would get to aid in mass conquest, they'll get dull little pacts with their neighbors. Technically you could do most of that without landing the kid, but I find I just never get around to it.

[ZombieHunter]

Do not give out strong titles to people that are not direct heirs. If you are at your demesne limit and you must create Dukes make sure they are only weak single duchy dukes. Do not create double or triple dukes. This is a recipe for disaster. Dukes are absolute jerks. They will want power however they can get it even if they already have a significant amount of power. They will revolt and they will create factions b/c you can't keep all of them on the council at any given time.

My goal is to keep my vassals as weak as possible while building up my own demesne and troops. If your vassals sense they are stronger than you bad things happen. Also make sure you marry off your daughters to strong allies. This deters vassals from rising up against you. And even if they are dumb enough to try you can rain hell and fire down on them with your troops and those of your allies. Then immediately revoke titles (if you can) and hand them back out to people with a good opinion of you. It is not a bad idea to 'recycle' your council and vassals every now and then. It causes issues at first but eventually creates a stronger system. Also if you are going to do this make sure you revoke all titles from everyone first before handing out new ones. B/c if you revoke and then hand one out to a person who likes you if you revoke after that the new person now doesn't like you. So to recycle your vassals you have to do it all at once. Also try not to create anything more than a double count. I also execute those who revolt against me if they do not have any remaining titles. Don't do this if it gives you tyranny b/c this is hard to remove.

[DracoHoribilis]

IM struggling hard, no matter the opinion they still claim titles, worst thing is that when ruler dies, its not the vassal but half the country is in disray and rise up in revolt... Im always like "well we fight" I mean revolt, I got 20K plus warriors and BLAM, the peasant rabble is like 35K army... like wtf?... at that moment when 35K army fights my 20K, thats when hell break loose, everyone claiming their titles, all vassals revolt, then some random two or three rulers invade,,, Always like this every time the ruler dies...

Not to mention I go off to a Crusade, the moment my troops are fighting on the opposite side of the world the same thing occurs, Rulers invade, revolt from peasants and a few vassals start killing me off.

Problems I really hate that I can have an army of 20K, but when they revolt, even if army is raised, they just dissapear, all of a sudden im a 5K army, fighting 100K units totally... find it very unfair and frustrating.

[endymionologist]

Desertion is frustrating, but you know those weren't your troops, you were just borrowing them. Strategy games are 'supposed' to be about fighting unwinnable wars and using your skills to win them, and CK is all about breaking that expectation. The proper response to the crisis you describe is to surrender; in this game that doesn't end your run or put you into a death spiral.
Let me give you an example from the period of history being modeled: In 1199 there was a succession in the kingdom of England; the new king lost three duchies in France to rebellions and conquest, and lost a series of conflicts with his vassals leading to new feudal contracts (with so many limitations they were still repealing parts of them in the 20th century). Beyond that, the rebels defamed the king so thoroughly that movies are still made today about what a bad king and person he was, and no English monarch since has been named after him.
And yet, his heirs and England went on to have a fairly interesting story.

[ZombieHunter]

Originally posted by edlongstreth:

Desertion is frustrating, but you know those weren't your troops, you were just borrowing them. Strategy games are 'supposed' to be about fighting unwinnable wars and using your skills to win them, and CK is all about breaking that expectation. The proper response to the crisis you describe is to surrender; in this game that doesn't end your run or put you into a death spiral.
Let me give you an example from the period of history being modeled: In 1199 there was a succession in the kingdom of England; the new king lost three duchies in France to rebellions and conquest, and lost a series of conflicts with his vassals leading to new feudal contracts (with so many limitations they were still repealing parts of them in the 20th century). Beyond that, the rebels defamed the king so thoroughly that movies are still made today about what a bad king and person he was, and no English monarch since has been named after him.
And yet, his heirs and England went on to have a fairly interesting story.

This is actually good advice. The best advice is know when to fight and know when to surrender. But make sure you know what the penalty is. It is usually not that bad. Everyone loses a war now and then in the game. You don't have to win every one. And sometimes winning creates more issues than if you just surrender and wait and bide your time and then strike back when you are in a better position.

And this might sound counter intuitive but sometimes if you can't beat them join them. The easiest way to gain power in the game is under a king or a liege. Slowly but surely you can gain power by warring with his vassals. Once you gain enough power you can then revolt and declare an independence war preferably when your liege is in many other wars and in a bad position and in the end you gain more land and power than you would have had if you stayed independent.

[DracoHoribilis]

Yeah I will replay later on, try all the ideas. Revolting peasants is a big isse, I spend all my military advisors time with trying to increase controls in counties, but it dosent really help when vassals attack each other.

Why it is harrowing, is that My ruler lived to be 90 years old, I just waited for him to die but he never did, then when he died the country just fell apart, i spend all my rulers time with war and then that guy died as he was already old, so the grandson took over and by then i had no levis, no land nothing really. So easy to loose all.

Do you guys ever play multiplayer, ironman? Is it easier?

[endymionologist]

I always play Ironman in Europa Universalis and Stellaris, but never in CK. I find the achievements in CK never feel like fun goals, because I want to be telling an original story; and I want to be able to edit that story a bit if the game takes me down a path that just isn't the story I'm willing to tell.