CK2: The Old Gods Interview

[mikeck]

Can we please just return to calling it the Dark Ages.  Late Antiquity should be between the height of Greek cities states and their being crushed by Rome.

Totally agree with that.  And I always thought it was ironic that the Greeks taught the Romans everything they knew before hand.

  The bit about learning from Greeks is Roman propaganda and it makes a weird kind of ideological sense once you crush the Hellenistic Kingdoms and you are facing the Persians and such along a shifting buffer zone  from Egypt to the Black Sea.

   Here's how it works:  The original world of the Greek City States was utterly crushed by 300 BC BUT Hellenistic regimes supported an antiquarian reconstruction of a Classical Age of Greek Goodness (with all the goodies that people have cooked up for that very idealized
world).  Rome had as good a claim to this classical tradition as any Hellenistic Regime and they happily assumed its aura and accumulated the marble copies of its bronze art as fast as they could.  Of course this classical aura was as much a fake when the Hellenistic Regimes assumed it as it was when the Romans assumed it and there is not much sign that either the Hellenistic Regimes or the Romans actually learned much from their assumption of a classical aura.  It did however offer an ideological basis for uniting the Levant and opposing the Persians.

I will admit that I don't understand this at all. BUT, I do know that Rome made its living by taking the best part of conquered people's and improving on it. Architectural ideas from Eutrusceans, helmets from the Gauls, gladius sword from the Spanish, scutum shield from the Samnites, etc. Throughout its life, Rome took what they liked, improved it and made it Rome's own. So "stealing" from Greece would not be unique to Greece at all...Rome took from everyone

[besilarius]

As an old prof mentioned, Rome was the only state in the world that conquered the world in self defense.

[RooksBailey]

Blood for the blood god!  The game is out!

Heading on over to GG to get my copy now.   :)

[MetalDog]

Can we please just return to calling it the Dark Ages.  Late Antiquity should be between the height of Greek cities states and their being crushed by Rome.

Totally agree with that.  And I always thought it was ironic that the Greeks taught the Romans everything they knew before hand.

  The bit about learning from Greeks is Roman propaganda and it makes a weird kind of ideological sense once you crush the Hellenistic Kingdoms and you are facing the Persians and such along a shifting buffer zone  from Egypt to the Black Sea.

   Here's how it works:  The original world of the Greek City States was utterly crushed by 300 BC BUT Hellenistic regimes supported an antiquarian reconstruction of a Classical Age of Greek Goodness (with all the goodies that people have cooked up for that very idealized
world).  Rome had as good a claim to this classical tradition as any Hellenistic Regime and they happily assumed its aura and accumulated the marble copies of its bronze art as fast as they could.  Of course this classical aura was as much a fake when the Hellenistic Regimes assumed it as it was when the Romans assumed it and there is not much sign that either the Hellenistic Regimes or the Romans actually learned much from their assumption of a classical aura.  It did however offer an ideological basis for uniting the Levant and opposing the Persians.

There were Greek colonies all over Sicily before there were Romans.  Some on the boot, too.  While I can't say that the conquerors/assimilators learned anything from the conquered/assimilated, you would have to expect that SOMEthing rubbed off, eh?

[Nefaro]

I'm waiting for sale.... and just to be honest, I am a little put off with the Music, Unit, Portait dlc cash cow again.... that should just be included with the full DLC and for $14.99 I would expect it to be..... I am a Paradox fan and all, but that cow has sore nips. 



PE

Agreed.... selling the unit & portrait packs separately from the DLC, with the same release date, is rather disappointing. 

Is that the price we pay for Pdox' regular sale sprees? 

Still.. the Pagan expansion is one I wanted to see from the beginning.  I need to wipe my 'To Play' list clean before long and pick it up.

[son_of_montfort]

There were Greek colonies all over Sicily before there were Romans.  Some on the boot, too.  While I can't say that the conquerors/assimilators learned anything from the conquered/assimilated, you would have to expect that SOMEthing rubbed off, eh?

No doubt. Fun fact, it was at the siege of Syracuse by the Romans where the famous inventor Archimedes was killed. They say he had a giant ship-crushing crane arm and a "death ray" of polished mirrors that focused the sun. Both are probably apocryphal, as is the story where the Roman centurion told him to get out of the street after the siege, but Archimedes was too busy scribbling math in the dirt, so the Roman soldier stabbed him to death (and was, in turn, executed for killing the inventor).

[Kushan]

Not to distract your guys side conversation but anyone have any first impressions of the DLC? As much as raiding as a viking sounds appealing, I think I'm going to wait to purchase this. Too many new releases and not enough free time.

[Tamas]

Playing as my pillaging... I mean, adventuring ancestors, the Hungarians, I had a great time!

The single most dramatic change I have encountered so far (beside all the new pagan mechanics) is the change to Gavelkind (to which you are stuck to as a pagan).

Instead of throwing around your title between your sons at seemingly random, it tries to hand them out following de jure borders. So lets say you have two Duke titles with assorted de jure count titles of them, and two sons. The second son will get one of the duke titles with all the de jure count titles under it.

It means you can still engineer your legacy, but it is much harder now. Especially since you cannot hand your titles to your direct heir, so no abusing of the system anymore.

Add that, and worse "short reign" penalties (for pagans at least), and I ended up having more challenge than I had since I managed to figure out the game, ie. more than a year.

I not only invaded de jure Hungary, but Wallachia as well, and half of Croatia and Bohemia, and was like "boy, it is easy to conquer with pagans". It is, the trick is keeping it!

I basically conquered southern Bohemia (Duchy of Moravia) so that I could hand out a unified realm to my younger son, as otherwise my actual heir would had ended up being too weak in his own country.

That worked out reasonably well. My heir only faced one faction-war which tried to put his uncle on the throne, and it seemed entirely managable.
My only problem was that his son was Possessed, so I started scheming to put his sane twin brother on the throne after their father.

Didn't have time for that :P The father died in battle, Possessed insane son took over, with a chunk of his father's land going to his twin brother, the war against his great-uncle remained....

No worries! With my memories from 1.08 I focused on one single thing: the one-province count who led great-uncle's rebellion, knowing that if I take him out, its over. I conquered his tiny fiefdom and... the warscore barely moved, since there were two Dukes supporting the war as well! Not enough to conquer the faction leader in a war anymore.

Things went south from there. The King's twin brother rebelled, his uncle rebelled, so there were 3 pretenders going at it, plus a peasant rebellion started rampaging on the eastern frontier (rebels with a cause if you buy the DLC!)

I fought valiantly, but nobles kept siding away from me. Meanwhile, Poland formed and became catholic (not sure in which order). And needless to say, started Holy Warring my precious border provinces away from me.

Possessed Guy died, but his little child could not turn the tide of pretenders of course. In desperation I let in an Italian bishop and converted at the earliest opportunity, hunting for a betrothal with the mighty King of Italy, which I gained, but apparently I couldn't trigger the alliance for the existing wars.
So ended up inprisoned as a single-province Christian count within a near-collapsed pagan Hungary, and when the kid came of age the King of Italy refused to marry his daughter to him.

it was sad to see my realm go, but on the other hand, I was so used to the game mechanics that everything was a cakewalk, so getting my behind handed to me on a plate by the game was very refreshing.

I restarted an other Hungary 867 game, now being much more methodical about the whole thing, keeping my conquest reasonable. Should be ok, altough the single Bohemian vassal I had left in the northern Duchy managed to wrestle the title from the Hungarian Duke I put over him, and now the entire Duchy is made of Bohemian nobles, so they are sure to be a major pain in the arse in the future (different culture AND religion), but right now I am concentrating on fabricating claims on my Croatian vassals' land so I would have my 4th son put somewhere (seems like if you give your non-direct heir a Duchy, he will not get from your remaining turf when you croak).


TLDR: in my opinion a very good refreshing of the game, made me almost as enthusiastic about it as when it first came out. Much of the reason for that is in the free patch, but I still recommend the DLC.

[MengJiao]

Can we please just return to calling it the Dark Ages.  Late Antiquity should be between the height of Greek cities states and their being crushed by Rome.

Totally agree with that.  And I always thought it was ironic that the Greeks taught the Romans everything they knew before hand.

  The bit about learning from Greeks is Roman propaganda and it makes a weird kind of ideological sense once you crush the Hellenistic Kingdoms and you are facing the Persians and such along a shifting buffer zone  from Egypt to the Black Sea.

   Here's how it works:  The original world of the Greek City States was utterly crushed by 300 BC BUT Hellenistic regimes supported an antiquarian reconstruction of a Classical Age of Greek Goodness (with all the goodies that people have cooked up for that very idealized
world).  Rome had as good a claim to this classical tradition as any Hellenistic Regime and they happily assumed its aura and accumulated the marble copies of its bronze art as fast as they could.  Of course this classical aura was as much a fake when the Hellenistic Regimes assumed it as it was when the Romans assumed it and there is not much sign that either the Hellenistic Regimes or the Romans actually learned much from their assumption of a classical aura.  It did however offer an ideological basis for uniting the Levant and opposing the Persians.

There were Greek colonies all over Sicily before there were Romans.  Some on the boot, too.  While I can't say that the conquerors/assimilators learned anything from the conquered/assimilated, you would have to expect that SOMEthing rubbed off, eh?

The Romans (like everyone else) picked up stuff from all their neighbors: naval stuff from the Cartheganians and Etruscans, ritual priesthoods from the Etruscans, specialized games and language from the Etruscans, early architecture from the Etruscans.  And then the Romans (like the Gauls and the Etruscans) picked up a certain type of quasi-ceremonial drinking upper class party complex from the Greeks.  And then the Romans adopted the classical aura (Atticisizing to the max) that the Hellenistic Kingdoms had used ideologically.  So Greek and Hellenistic stuff came in at many levels and in many ways directly and indirectly.  For example, the Romans and Greeks and Etruscans all picked up the Phoenician alphabet by around 700 BC.  The Romans, Greeks and Etruscans all picked up the Orientalizing style around the same time.  Everybody started going hopilite (arms, armor and formations) around 600 BC.  And so it goes.  To say that the Romans must have learned something from the Greeks is quite true, all-too-true even since to start with they probably got as much of what looks Greek to us from the Etruscans.  The final clincher --and the most misleading -- is the assumption of a classical aura.

[MengJiao]

Not to distract your guys side conversation but anyone have any first impressions of the DLC? As much as raiding as a viking sounds appealing, I think I'm going to wait to purchase this. Too many new releases and not enough free time.

I took the East Roman Empire in 867 since I figured the new barbarians would be giving everyone a lot of trouble plus I would get the Varangian Guard.  Naturally my own family (and some old guy called Barbus or something) almost wrecked the Empire.  Fortunately, the Byzantines are very good at intrigue and I managed to stop most of the factional crap (including the Empresses little plan of killing her step-son) with a few serious conversations before I was seriously disfigured in testing a primitive aircraft (after I kicked out the test dog).

Now everybody hates me and I have a dungeon full of rebels.

[Martok]

'Twill get The Old Gods soon, just not this week.  My wallet's a little thin right now, and I'm (as usual) swamped with the games I'm already trying to get to (especially Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes and Distant Worlds: Shadows). 

Blood for the blood god!  The game is out!

Heading on over to GG to get my copy now.   :)

I laughed at "BEARD". 

[MengJiao]

Not to distract your guys side conversation but anyone have any first impressions of the DLC? As much as raiding as a viking sounds appealing, I think I'm going to wait to purchase this. Too many new releases and not enough free time.

I took the East Roman Empire in 867 since I figured the new barbarians would be giving everyone a lot of trouble plus I would get the Varangian Guard.  Naturally my own family (and some old guy called Barbus or something) almost wrecked the Empire.  Fortunately, the Byzantines are very good at intrigue and I managed to stop most of the factional crap (including the Empresses little plan of killing her step-son) with a few serious conversations before I was seriously disfigured in testing a primitive aircraft (after I kicked out the test dog).

Now everybody hates me and I have a dungeon full of rebels.

Somehow I got through all that.  The nasty old wife died and the guy she wanted to kill -- well I gave the boy the Kingdom of Greece and he went and took Crete from the local emirs and set up a Duchy and then he started a war with some of Bulgaria's allies and I got called in and in the end I got fed up with the squabble and took my retinue and captured the King of Bulgaria and executed him.  That seemed to end the war since Bulgaria fragmented and got real peaceful for a while.  Maybe the Hungarians have them worried.  I think I've only survived because I have yet another genius spy guy -- a Sicilian muslim.  Look out.

[son_of_montfort]

I chose this unpronouncable tribe that was given as a decent start for Vikings. It is in the Kievan Rus area and my ambition was to form the Kingdom of Rus. One thing that makes the Pagans a little different is their ability to basically declare war at the drop of a hat. Want to form a kingdom? Easy, subjugate nearby tribes. Want to have that county? Easy, simply declare war for it with no justification. Now this has a price, your vassal loyalty is a little hard to keep good (since you are calling their troops so frequently), other nearby kingdoms can DOW on you at any moment, and your conquered lands are disloyal and tend to revolt.

Not only CAN you declare war at the drop of the hat, you MUST declare war. If you don't and have been at peace for too long, your prestige begins to drop (nice way of simulating the drive for loot).

The Pagans are a dynamic game experience. So far, I like it (I found it particularly interesting that I emptied my dungeons by sacrificing enemies at the Blot - not only did I get rid of them, I raised my piety!). I'm wondering how the "assimilation" works in the game, around the mid-900s the Vikings should start to act more like Christian kingdoms. That means there should be a potential for forming Normandy as Rollo and "settling down" once it has formed.

I'm a little miffed that you have to spend around $3 extra to get the Viking faces and unit packs. I don't like this use of DLC.

[MengJiao]

I chose this unpronouncable tribe that was given as a decent start for Vikings. It is in the Kievan Rus area and my ambition was to form the Kingdom of Rus. One thing that makes the Pagans a little different is their ability to basically declare war at the drop of a hat. Want to form a kingdom? Easy, subjugate nearby tribes. Want to have that county? Easy, simply declare war for it with no justification. Now this has a price, your vassal loyalty is a little hard to keep good (since you are calling their troops so frequently), other nearby kingdoms can DOW on you at any moment, and your conquered lands are disloyal and tend to revolt.

Not only CAN you declare war at the drop of the hat, you MUST declare war. If you don't and have been at peace for too long, your prestige begins to drop (nice way of simulating the drive for loot).

The Pagans are a dynamic game experience. So far, I like it (I found it particularly interesting that I emptied my dungeons by sacrificing enemies at the Blot - not only did I get rid of them, I raised my piety!). I'm wondering how the "assimilation" works in the game, around the mid-900s the Vikings should start to act more like Christian kingdoms. That means there should be a potential for forming Normandy as Rollo and "settling down" once it has formed.

I'm a little miffed that you have to spend around $3 extra to get the Viking faces and unit packs. I don't like this use of DLC.

It's about 883 in my ERE game and I haven't seen any Vikings yet except in the Varangian Guard.  A fine body of men -- if somewhat inclined to take heavy casualties -- Anway, from reports on the Paradox forums, the Vikings spend a lot of time sacking the Levant.  That's parallel worlds for you.  Where I live, the Vikings seem to be pretty well-behaved.  So far it looks like the world of TOG works better for players in the middle of the world since there are new forces on the edges to occupy the intermediate powers (ie the neighbors of the ERE that have those Zoroastricans and Hungarians and Penchegs and Blots and Finns and Svelts behind them).

[son_of_montfort]

"Viking" (or at least Norman) sacks of the Levant would be alright for the late 1000s or early 1100s, but a bit odd for the 9th century!