How the hell do I play?

[freeze]

New game, new mechanics to learn. But I cannot get hold over CK2! How do I play this?

[Liberty Prime]

Tutorial is bad but it at leasts kind of teaches you stuff. Trial and error is the main method you will use though. So start somewhere simple like as a duke in 769 England or something just watch out for raiders.

[freeze]

thanks, I'll try that.

[freeze]

Originally posted by butters:

Tutorial is bad but it at leasts kind of teaches you stuff. Trial and error is the main method you will use though. So start somewhere simple like as a duke in 769 England or something just watch out for raiders.

wait, what if you dont have the DLC's and are not bothered to get one?

[Vyse]

Originally posted by ItsViviotic:

Originally posted by butters:

Tutorial is bad but it at leasts kind of teaches you stuff. Trial and error is the main method you will use though. So start somewhere simple like as a duke in 769 England or something just watch out for raiders.

wait, what if you dont have the DLC's and are not bothered to get one?

I haven't got that long in this game, but I started in Ireland with Munster using the 1066 bookmark and things have clicked there better than they did when I did the learning scenario. You've got a De Jure claim from the off on Desmond, you're pretty isolated from everyone else, you've got plenty of options for how you want to go about taking the rest of the island and it's just a great place to learn the game. Take your time, play a non ironman game and just try things out, you can always reload if something goes horribly wrong.

Also have a read of the beginner's guide from the Wiki.

[Donathan Cheadledge]

Originally posted by ItsViviotic:

Originally posted by butters:

Tutorial is bad but it at leasts kind of teaches you stuff. Trial and error is the main method you will use though. So start somewhere simple like as a duke in 769 England or something just watch out for raiders.

wait, what if you dont have the DLC's and are not bothered to get one?

Then it's even easier to learn, really. You can have a bash in 1066 Ireland or as a duke in the Holy Roman Empire.

At the end of the day though, who you play as to learn doesn't matter tooo much as long as you don't pick anybody horrendously weak (like a tiny place right next to a lotta muslims, for example)

[Strolok]

Play as an Irish count that slowly takes over the entire island and becomes king. Great way of learning mechanics and its pretty calm so you won't get outnumbered often. Just make sure to check that your enemies can't levy more troops that you when you attack.

[X-the Unknown]

You don't need DLC to "play" this game they just add to it. Start out in the Denmark Sweden Norweigian area it's pretty easy because you have access to easy pagans. If you start out as a King you'll be overwhelmed by it and might quit before you find the fun in it. Start out as a Duke or Count your first play through. You can make King even as a Duke or Count. Don't try to goto war so quickly and learn from the AI what is going on.

Press your tiddily button ~ and then type in fow so you can see the whole map and what the AI is doing. then press the tiddily button again to remove the box from the screen. The Ai will teach you a lot about some things and you'll have to learn through trial an error about other things. Hover your mouse over each item at the top and bottom of the screen and it will tell you what it does. Everything bascially works from the "mouse" so hover over everthing you don't understand.

Right clicking on pictures brings up other things you can do, left clicking does actions like tells you about your chracters traits and such.

Don't get frustrated I know it looks complicated but it really isn't once you get into it. In fact it might get boring just sitting there looking at the screen. Things will popup and ding as you progress through the game. There will be messages toward the top side of the screen for you to read and messages at the very middle down at the bottom. These are things called "events" happening in the game. Read them at first later I'm sure you will turn some of these on and off.

Above all you need some knowledge of Medieval History to understand the game concepts for roleplaying. There will be times you'll lose some family members to assassinations and captures in wars. It's more about roleplaying than it is a strategy game for sure. You'll find that out as you play the AI and see how easy it becomes.

There's actually too many other things to explain but, as I said trial and error and the AI will teach you. Don't be afraid to start over if you think you're too far gone in a few games at the start. Each game will teach you something new and you're getting what I call the easy version since they changed a lot of things that used to be in the game that made it tedious and harder like searching for characters to "invite" to your court and a quick find marraige partner with just a button push. Inviting plot members or even having plot members is a new feature. Many things are streamlined today that didn't used to be. :)

[Whiny Anakin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgcwfLt6sfY

I watched this video and then just followed along.

[Ryan]

I was stumped for a long time because I didn't understand the Feudal system and how all the landed titles worked: Barons, Counts, Dukes, Mayors, Duchies, Demene, King, Emporer, etc, etc, etc!

http://www.ckiiwiki.com/Vassals

[Spartacus]

I'll have to check out that video as I love CK2 and EUIV even though I dunno WTF I'm doing.

[morph113]

I also bought CK II a week ago and already have 40 hours into it. Coming from EU IV I thought it would be very similar but in fact it's actually quiet different. But it didn't take me longer than a few hours to get into enough to understand how most stuff works. But I did some preparation before playing and I can only suggest you do the same. Read up on how the games mechanics work on the games Wikia which someone linked 2 posts above mine. Especially the feudal system and how heritage works is quiet important to know and can probably be hard to learn from just playing. Once you understood the basic concept and mechanics you can simply play and go with it. Like in EU IV you can find all the information and explanations you need in tooltips when you hover over pretty much anything.

[Kraek]

The first 50 hours are a pain (i forced myself to play it, just because i paid good money for it and so many claimed it was good even though for the love of god I could not see why anyone would play this game?), and before you know it, you have a 1000 hours up your belt and you keep coming back to it.

[Joe]

Look up a guy named Arumba on Youtube. He is really really good.

[Liberty Prime]

Originally posted by Boy Mayor of Second Life:

Look up a guy named Arumba on Youtube. He is really really good.

Am I the only one who's never watched YouTube to learn a paradox game?

[Kraek]

Originally posted by butters:

Originally posted by Boy Mayor of Second Life:

Look up a guy named Arumba on Youtube. He is really really good.

Am I the only one who's never watched YouTube to learn a paradox game?

nah, same here. I mostly learned it playing with the CKII wiki open.
http://www.ckiiwiki.com