Finally looking to start my first CK II campaign, maybe as Venice, maybe as a Hanseatic power, maybe as a Muslim power...not sure yet. What are your favorite factions to play as? Thanks all!
oooooooooooooo, if only it was that easy!
its a chicken and the egg decision at the start - do you choose a faction and then your goals, or your goals and a faction to fit them?
Do you want to be King and rule from the top and manage the intricacies of state politics, vassals and dukes, and choose a lofty goal like the unification of Italy/Spain/Germany
or start as a count and see where it takes you - work up to be that King and then revisit your goals - but starting down here youll find your own rivals that may make your path deviate from the noble quest to Kingship to eradicating the filthy XXXXXXXs for stealing your land/wife/child
UCG explained it well.
For me if I'm feeling Kingly I try to unify Spain.... after killing all my siblings.... 8)
For a count challenge I try to unify Ireland and become the Irish King then challenge England. :o
How about if I want to be a medieval captain of industry?
Quote from: Gusington on April 18, 2013, 12:59:03 PM
How about if I want to be a medieval captain of industry?
My guess would be Venice.
Anyone play as a merchant republic yet? I wonder if they are more or less difficult than the average faction.
Quote from: Gusington on April 18, 2013, 01:07:51 PM
Anyone play as a merchant republic yet? I wonder if they are more or less difficult than the average faction.
I've played a fair amount as Genoa and Venice. They start off really slow, due to low income. I found myself playing on the 3rd and 4th speed settings for a years, until I was able to afford to build trade posts and improvements. Once you get a few trade posts built and upgraded, and some improvements to your house, you'll be ok. If you start as a doge or get elected as one, its not so bad since you get tax income from all of your republics provinces. The thing I didn't like was that all males in your family get a portion of your income, and if your not constantly expanding, they will make a noticeable difference in your income per month after a few generations. There's been a few patches since they last time I've played however, so they might have tweaked things.
The Irish are a good place to start as you are learning the game as there are some great tutorial videos out there using them as an example.
Thanks Kushan. Irish eh? That would definitely be fun too. How many friggin' factions are there to choose from? I fear my mind may melt in trying to decide. Are there playable Mongol factions?
Like the old pyramid of skulls, eh Gus Vader?
Hard to resist after a long day at the office wishing I could turn everyone into a pyramid of skulls, you know?
Not everyone. Only my clients. A pyramid of Arrogant Imbecile Pilot skulls! ARRRggghhh!
Ireland is supposedly, "Newb Island." It's where a lot of people cut their teeth. If it was me, I would suggest starting there to get the basics down and a feel for how things go, and then jump out into the greater world. I would also start as a Count. You learn all the little nuances to gaining as much as you can with the little available to you.
I guess the nuances were too subtle for a knucklehead like me. I just seemed to spend the bulk of my time hiring tutors and waiting for my incompetent lackey to generate a cassus belli for me.
^Since EUI I have been trying to learn similar Paradox games and just never get it. I am hoping for better results this time.
I like to move around but prefer to start in Ireland just to keep murder in the fambly. I get to play one of my ancestors.
Scotland FTW.
Scotland is just friggin' cool, man!
Norway is cool, too. 8)
Should I bother with the tutorials or should I jump right in to an actual game?
Quote from: Gusington on April 19, 2013, 07:32:24 AM
Should I bother with the tutorials or should I jump right in to an actual game?
Probably give the tutorials a go especially if you are not familiar with the game. They are fairly quick and give a very basic overview of the depth of the game.
Cool I will do that, thanks.
There is also always the CK2 Wiki for help.
http://ckiiwiki.com/Crusader_Kings_II_Wiki
This video series really helped me out when I was learning the play the game there a number of videos but they cover alot of the depth of the game.
Playing as one of the Russian princes has always been fun for me.
A Russian faction sounds interesting too.
Thanks for the above Tent.
Quote from: Gusington on April 19, 2013, 10:27:59 AM
A Russian faction sounds interesting too.
Most of the Rurik dukes are easy to start with since the other familial Dukes start the game allied with you. Mixed in with some militarily strong neighboring pagan states, you can often get some fairly quick expansion in if you butter up your other Rurik brothers & cousins enough to help. After awhile, the family bonds start breaking down as in-fighting due to family claims on each other start breaking down the family friendships. The Cumans also tend to attempt expanding at the expense of the Rus about that time.
There tends to be more open warfare and religious conflict in the early game, playing as one of the Russian princes.
yup, no need for cassus beli on the pagans - just smack em around and steal their land
until the pagan expansion comes out
Quote from: MetalDog on April 18, 2013, 06:37:51 PM
Ireland is supposedly, "Newb Island." It's where a lot of people cut their teeth.
I fit that description to a T. I've still not put that many hours into the game yet, but playing as an Irish count does seem to offer a gentler learning curve.
Gus,
I watched about 4 of that guy's Youtube series that Tent posted above before I started playing CK2. Although it's a bit of an investment of time, it REALLY helps you to understand how the game works.
I would go so far as to say it's virtually impossible to play without some sort of front-end investment to figure the game out. Take the hour or so and watch at least the first 4 pieces of his video series and you should be able to start having fun, even though you still won't understand half of what's going on.
Cool, investing a few hours in exchange for 100s or 1000s of hours of good gaming is worth it to me. I should have some time tonight to watch a few of those YouTube tutorials.
Ok so I just watched the first one and it is good. It helps that the guy is funny too. Right now I am most interested in playing as Venice or similar merchant republic or a Byzantine faction. Would one of those two make my initial game difficulty go up as compared to starting a campaign in Ireland?
I first played Ireland because it's isolated and it helped me learn the internal politics without having to worry about being surrounded by major superpower and a myriad of smaller dukes, counts other than England. And England really only starts to get aggressive I've found after you unit Ireland or are close to it, but by that point you're looking to pick a fight with them anyway.
You might want to do a practice game as Ireland or Scotland first, just to figure out how the game works. Sort of follow along with what he does in the video.
Once you understand the mechanics, then try another faction.
I've only played as Scotland and Iceland. Iceland was really hard. Scotland was hard, too, but only because I'm a total scrub at the game.
How was Iceland really hard? Wouldn't it be similar to Ireland? Just with a 'c' instead of 'r'? :)
I wasn't very experienced with the game, first of all.
What I think made it hard is that you basically start with just the two provinces in Iceland, so you're a count or a count, and I think Iceland is a vassal to Norway when you start. Basically it's hard to get anything really started. You're geographically isolated so you have to boat anywhere you want to go, and you're never going to be powerful enough to go to war with Norway.
It's just a very hard starting position to actually get to "playing".
Pretty incredible that Iceland is even a choice.