Holy Fury Only

[J4MESOX4D]

I own the base game of CK2 and heard that the Holy Fury DLC is an essential purchase but I am wondering if that DLC works fine on its own with the vanilla game or if further DLC is nigh-essential to get the best out of the experience?

Cheers!

[MategoPl]

The Old Gods should be your first choice.

[Red Dragon]

I'd say pick up the holy trinity first: Conclave, Way of Life, and Legacy of Rome.

After that Holy Fury should probably be your fourth or fifth dlc. You do not need the Old Gods to play as pagans nowadays, since Holy Fury unlocks them as well and is thus much more feature-rich than the Old Gods (which is nevertheless a good dlc since it has other features beyond just unlocking pagans, but it's not vital to own anymore if you have Holy Fury).

Edit: Any dlc combination will work fine, you can mix and match however you like them and depending on which dlc you have activated features are simply added or unlocked like switches on a switchboard. If you are asking what you should pick up for the best overall experience in order to make the game really come alive I'd say definitely use these four dlc's as your basic entry point, since they will expand your overall experience the most in terms of useful options and character roleplay.

[Viss Valdyr]

Originally posted by Red Dragon:

I'd say pick up the holy trinity first: Conclave, Way of Life, and Legacy of Rome.

After that Holy Fury should probably be your fourth or fifth dlc. You do not need the Old Gods to play as pagans nowadays, since Holy Fury unlocks them as well and is thus much more feature-rich than the Old Gods (which is nevertheless a good dlc since it has other features beyond just unlocking pagans, but it's not vital to own anymore if you have Holy Fury).

Edit: Any dlc combination will work fine, you can mix and match however you like them and depending on which dlc you have activated features are simply added or unlocked like switches on a switchboard. If you are asking what you should pick up for the best overall experience in order to make the game really come alive I'd say definitely use these four dlc's as your basic entry point, since they will expand your overall experience the most in terms of useful options and character roleplay.

since conclave changes a lot of the basegame, the holy trinity in my opinion is: way of life (a must have), old Gods (pagan, different startdate) and holy fury.

[Red Dragon]

Originally posted by Viss Valdyr:

since conclave changes a lot of the basegame, the holy trinity in my opinion is: way of life (a must have), old Gods (pagan, different startdate) and holy fury.

1) That's exactly the point though: it changes the base game so much with regards to feudal management that it would really suck to miss out on it and then have to re-learn and re-think a lot of mechanics and have to actively forget a bunch of others if you decide to get it at some point later on. Vassal management and education are huge core mechanics that need to be mastered and since Conclave flips both of these on their head it would be really bad to invest lots of time into learning the vanilla mechanics just to throw them out the window later on. It's also the one and only dlc that makes playing as a vassal actually interesting, because suddenly you can apply leverage to make things happen beyond just joining a faction and threatening your liege with war.

2) I really don't see the point in recommending the Old Gods so highly if you get Holy Fury. Yes the start date is obviously really nice and more dangerous adventurerers and more dangerous revolts are both really nice too; But it's certainly not in the top three, since having the Old Gods is definitely not more important than having access to the retinue system from Legacy of Rome. I'm happy we can both agree on Way of Life though.

[CidDaBird]

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

I own the base game of CK2 and heard that the Holy Fury DLC is an essential purchase but I am wondering if that DLC works fine on its own with the vanilla game or if further DLC is nigh-essential to get the best out of the experience?

Cheers!

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Downloadable_content

I started playing ck2 when https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Charlemagne came out and before I played this dlc it was boring. The two I would say that hooked me more than any other would be Old Gods and Charlemagne because of being a pagan at the earliest start date.

Holy Fury is a nice dlc but it isn't better than Charlemagne, so get this next. I recommend all dlc when theres a sale though.

[Mr_Faorry]

Every dlc works fine on it's own, none are reliant on anything but the base game and they all play nice with eachother regardless of what combination you use (this is official dlc after all, not user made mods).

However I wouldn't recommend HF as your first dlc, though I would put it in the top 5.
I'd recommend Way of Life, Conclave and Reapers Due (in that order) before Holy Fury.

[The Cure]

You don't need Conclave. It doesn't add much to the game. The new Council mechanics just make you jump through more hoops to achieve the same things you could do before. The law reworks just switch things around without adding anything new other than adding a law that allows you to have woman on your council. The education system is inferior since it removes a ton of child/education events. Favors are mostly used for manipulating your council so you can more easily jump through the aforementioned hoops. Favors can do a bit more, but it's not anything to write home about.

The only thing Conclave really adds is some new ambitions and the ability for non-nomads to create mercenary bands. Simply rearranging preexisting mechanics and only adding a few new ones isn't worth it IMO.

[JD]

Originally posted by The Cure:

You don't need Conclave. It doesn't add much to the game. The new Council mechanics just make you jump through more hoops to achieve the same things you could do before. The law reworks just switch things around without adding anything new other than adding a law that allows you to have woman on your council. The education system is inferior since it removes a ton of child/education events. Favors are mostly used for manipulating your council so you can more easily jump through the aforementioned hoops. Favors can do a bit more, but it's not anything to write home about.

The only thing Conclave really adds is some new ambitions and the ability for non-nomads to create mercenary bands. Simply rearranging preexisting mechanics and only adding a few new ones isn't worth it IMO.

If I'm not mistaken without Conclave some things that can make you a tyrant with Conclave will not. If your council approves title revocation, you can do it without getting "tyranny" penalty.
But I could be wrong since I don't have it, will be interesting to know.

[Red Dragon]

Originally posted by The Cure:

You don't need Conclave. It doesn't add much to the game. The new Council mechanics just make you jump through more hoops to achieve the same things you could do before. The law reworks just switch things around without adding anything new other than adding a law that allows you to have woman on your council. The education system is inferior since it removes a ton of child/education events. Favors are mostly used for manipulating your council so you can more easily jump through the aforementioned hoops. Favors can do a bit more, but it's not anything to write home about.

The only thing Conclave really adds is some new ambitions and the ability for non-nomads to create mercenary bands. Simply rearranging preexisting mechanics and only adding a few new ones isn't worth it IMO.

I don't agree. Some time ago I started an ironman run to grab the five children with the five different lvl 4 education traits achievement as a vassal of France (so as not to be bothered). I disabled Conclave to make it easier to gain the lvl 4 edu traits and the interactions with your vassals and council, let alone being on the council of my own liege, felt super dull and barebones after getting used to Conclave. There's just no way I could go back.

I do agree though that it's sad they didn't manage to integrate many of the old education events which were really cool.

[Red Dragon]

Originally posted by JD:

If I'm not mistaken without Conclave some things that can make you a tyrant with Conclave will not. If your council approves title revocation, you can do it without getting "tyranny" penalty.
But I could be wrong since I don't have it, will be interesting to know.

The main hook of the dlc is that four or five of your most powerful vassals will "demand" a seat on your council or otherwise they will be unhappy (-40). However, if they are on the council while the "council is content" the -40 becomes the usual +10 and they cannot start or join factions, so it's a great way to pacify powerful vassals. However, if you do something despite the council voting against it, then you will incur some temporary tyranny modifier and this (along with successions and one or two other things) will make the council discontent for a while. This makes them joining factions possible again and it temporarily locks you out of some other options like enforcing realm peace (which means temporarily forbidding infighting for your vassals).

What actions the council can and cannot vote on is regulated in great detail by council empowerment laws (which also slightly impact your possible vassal number) and as long as they can vote at least on war declarations then the councillors cannot annoy you with taking part in factions. Each councillor adopts one of five different "voting stances" based on their traits and their opinion of you. Their voting stance (and some personal or dynastic relations and other things) dictates how they will vote on different issues, unless their stance makes them have no particular opinion on something, which then makes them vote according to how other councillors vote weighted by their diplomacy attribute (and I believe also their opinion of each other).

If you want someone on the council to vote your way you can try to buy a "favor" from them, or alternatively you can simply ask them to vote your way, which makes you owe them a favor. Favors can be exchanged for all kinds of useful things besides voting though. You can even do things like buying favors from people outside of your court - for example you can even buy a favor from an infidel and then use it to invite them to your court, which you can't do at all in the base game (You can't invite heirs and pretenders or certain other characters for obvious reasons though).

[Red Dragon]

Originally posted by JD:

If I'm not mistaken without Conclave some things that can make you a tyrant with Conclave will not. If your council approves title revocation, you can do it without getting "tyranny" penalty.
But I could be wrong since I don't have it, will be interesting to know.

Whoops - Regarding your actual question: Negative opinion due to "tyranny" and due to "unlawful revocation of titles" are essentially two completely seperate issues in Conclave. Just because the council votes yes on revoking a specific title doesn't mean your vassals are suddenly okay with it if you had no valid reason for the revocation. "Tyranny" is now a negative opinion modifier that comes from doing things despite the council majority voting against it. This means you may have a valid reason for revoking a title but maybe the council likes this guy so you will become a tyrant for going against the council vote. If you both revoke without reason and go against the council vote you get both negative modifiers (if the council member is also a vassal. If they are just a courtier then they don't care that you revoked without reason, but they do care about the council tyranny). However, I believe I remember that the precise opinion penalties for some things may be slightly re-balanced for conclave to be a bit less punishing than in vanilla, so while going against the council is rarely a good idea in a pinch it's usually not the end of the world either.

Also, instead of your regent running the whole show as a one-person dictator (while you're a child, or incapable, or in hiding), what gets done in the realm is decided upon by the council instead of just your regent. The regent basically just gets your place and your tie-breaking vote in the council.

[JD]

Originally posted by Red Dragon:

Originally posted by JD:

If I'm not mistaken without Conclave some things that can make you a tyrant with Conclave will not. If your council approves title revocation, you can do it without getting "tyranny" penalty.
But I could be wrong since I don't have it, will be interesting to know.

Whoops - Regarding your actual question: Negative opinion due to tyranny and due to unlawful revocation of titles are essentially two seperate issues in Conclave. Just because the council votes yes on revoking a specific title doesn't mean your vassals are suddenly okay with it if you had no valid reason for the revocation. Tyranny is a negative opinion modifier that comes from doing things despite the council majority voting against it. This means you may have a valid reason for revoking a title but maybe the council likes this guy so you will become a tyrant for going against the council vote. If you both revoke without reason and go against the council vote you get both negative modifiers (if the council member is also a vassal. If they are just a courtier then they don't care that you revoked without reason, but they do care about the council tyranny). However, I believe I remember that the precise opinion penalties for some things may be slightly re-balanced for conclave to be a bit less punishing than in vanilla, so while going against the council is rarely a good idea in a pinch it's usually not the end of the world either.

Also, instead of your regent running the whole show as a one-person dictator what gets done in the realm is decided upon by the council instead of just your regent. The regent basically just gets your place and your tie-breaking vote in the council.

My bad, "approves title revocation" and "votes yes when you're trying to revoke someone's title" (what did I mean) these are different things, but you got me. Thanks.

[Mr_Faorry]

Originally posted by The Cure:

You don't need Conclave. It doesn't add much to the game. The new Council mechanics just make you jump through more hoops to achieve the same things you could do before. The law reworks just switch things around without adding anything new other than adding a law that allows you to have woman on your council. The education system is inferior since it removes a ton of child/education events. Favors are mostly used for manipulating your council so you can more easily jump through the aforementioned hoops. Favors can do a bit more, but it's not anything to write home about.

The only thing Conclave really adds is some new ambitions and the ability for non-nomads to create mercenary bands. Simply rearranging preexisting mechanics and only adding a few new ones isn't worth it IMO.

It makes a the game a lot more fun to play.
Passing laws is a whole lot less tedious as you only need your councils approval (or just your approval with certain laws) rather than half the realms's approval, you can also get favours to make people vote your way.
The Education system is far better, it gives you much more control over the outcome of the child if you know how it works.
Overall it just makes things less tedious and spices things up so you don't have a bunch of suer stable blobs as easily.

[galadon3]

Plus it makes playing a vassal something more then just conquering other vassals until you are strong enough to topple the top-liege, you can actually prepare to get a faction going for that.
But since Cure dislikes conclave he kinda jumps into every discussion and just claims it to be bad, while its apparently just not his cup of tea.

[Mr_Faorry]

Originally posted by galadon3:

Plus it makes playing a vassal something more then just conquering other vassals until you are strong enough to topple the top-liege, you can actually prepare to get a faction going for that.

♥♥♥♥, I knew there was something big I was forgetting.
Yeah it makes playing as a vassal actually enjoyable.

Originally posted by galadon3:

But since Cure dislikes conclave he kinda jumps into every discussion and just claims it to be bad, while its apparently just not his cup of tea.

How much do you wanna bet he's just 'madbcbad'. Got good at the old system then when he had to relearn couldn't be bothered because he wasn't instantly able to game it like he could before.