This game is way to complicated

[MeHoW]

Are you kidding you think CIV 5 is hard? it is dump downed version of civ 4 and you suck.


And It makes me laugh when you said " I almost played everything" when clearly you almost never touched a gran campain game, that is abit more complicted.

[Bis]

I agree that learning is as much fun as playing. Question for OP: Is winning the most important thing to you?

[Kaedish]

Thing that sets this apart from HOI or EU, etc, is that it is more of a role-playing sim sandbox rather than a full strat game. Even when you don't have the money, prestige, or whatever to mash a button, it is still eventful and even reading up on family members and their extended family and their resultant reactions is just as much fun as when you have a heated battle. It's hilarious to learn that you daughter has a harelip and somehow your wife got syphilis, even though you didn't give it to her!

[Dr0W]

Originally Posted by Bis

I agree that learning is as much fun as playing. Question for OP: Is winning the most important thing to you?

I've never thought this way. Really, winning isn't important for me as long as I had fun in the game (and mostly if my death was fun, lol!).

That must be one of the reasons I love CK2.

[Milkycookie]

Originally Posted by YariKrishna

too complicated? CK2 is the easiest and most simple of Paradox's games imo, it's my favourite one.

You want a game that's too complicated, see Victoria 2 or Hearts of Iron 3 lol.

Hearts of Iron 3 is actually the dumb down version of Hoi 1 and 2 and the poor successor for both.

Vicky on the other hand is a sadomasochistic grand strategy game for the uninitiated.

Originally Posted by Kaedish

Thing that sets this apart from HOI or EU, etc, is that it is more of a role-playing sim sandbox rather than a full strat game. Even when you don't have the money, prestige, or whatever to mash a button, it is still eventful and even reading up on family members and their extended family and their resultant reactions is just as much fun as when you have a heated battle. It's hilarious to learn that you daughter has a harelip and somehow your wife got syphilis, even though you didn't give it to her!

Yes lots of the fun is from reading the traits and events of your family members. As my empire got bigger and me not bothering to nuremaid everyone of them, I was surprised to find a Hedonistic, Stressed, Syphilitic, Possessed, Lustful Priest who kept petitioning for the Chancellor of the Realm position...

It's all about good genes, you need to treat your family like a good dog breeder, kill off the ones with bad traits and only breed the ones with the best traits.

After repeated testing via Save game editing, I've discovered more or less how to make a god amongst men....it'll take many generations but by the end game you'll have a Demi-god like being as your heir to your Empire.

Key point is finding a Wife with the same trait you wish to breed into the next generation. So picking that Wife is really really important. You want her to be as young as possible and have as many similar traits as possible. Also make sure to check her lineage, I find it best to marry a Courtier with no family and hence no lineage, hence lowers the chance of bad traits.

Send off the ones with bad traits to war, I hear Jerusalem is nice with all those Doomstacks....

[Broken Clock]

Good to see that the average forum responder in Steam is still a prepubescent ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ taking out his rage online to alleviate the pain he gets put through in high school.

People seem to think that they're intelligent if they play Europa or Victoria. No, my children, those are just video games. Nobody cares if you play EU3 as the Iroquois and dominate the world without westernizing.

CK2 is not an easy game to play. It is certainly one of the simpler grand-strategy games produced by Paradox; however, that's not saying much, since all of their strategy games require much more time than the average game to figure out. It's a pity that all their titles are digitally distributed, because they are certainly games that could have used those giant instruction manuals PC games came with long ago.

Anyway, you just have to play around with the game for 10-15 hours and you'll figure the whole thing out no problem. Keep at it, because it's certainly a fun game.

Also, try to ignore the morons. Virginity + internet anonymity + public platform = forum trolls

[td3005]

Since when did being a hard core gamer have anything to do with playing a 'grand strategy' game ? I know lots of hard core gamers, i've been in guilds with them and guess what, none of them play grand strategy games. I think you are confusing hard core gamer with GIANT DOOSH.

[Resonanse]

Originally Posted by Broken Clock

Good to see that the average forum responder in Steam

I agree with your general point; it would be nice to see the Steam forums respond to general complaints or queries with a greater degree of maturity and respect.

However, your post is highly hypocritical. Your own statements are just as childish as those berating the OP, if not more so because you attempt to take the higher morale ground whilst lowering yourself to their level.

[perles75]

I do not agree that the tutorials of CK2 are bad. It covers the basic concepts of the game and gives you an idea on what you are dealing with. I had no big problems to play the game without reading the manual or a Wiki, after watching the tutorials.
If you expect that a tutorial takes you by hand and explains the minutiae à-la Facebook games ("click here, then move the mouse here, now scroll the map there. Good boy, you deserve this award!"), well yes, of course you would be disappointed.

The game itself is not particularly hard for a Paradox product; compared to other similar games (i.e. Europa Universalis 3) it has fewer basic mechanics. It is still a Paradox game and it has a steep learning curve, and probably it needs some in-game years in one test game in order to understand the various details (especially regarding the dynasty management which is the core of the game), but it should become pretty clear relatively fast.

Comparing Civ5 to CK2 (or more in general the Civ franchise with the Paradox games) is like comparing pears to apples.

[Turkrawr]

Originally Posted by Milkycookie

Hearts of Iron 3 is actually the dumb down version of Hoi 1 and 2 and the poor successor for both.

Vicky on the other hand is a sadomasochistic grand strategy game for the uninitiated.



Yes lots of the fun is from reading the traits and events of your family members. As my empire got bigger and me not bothering to nuremaid everyone of them, I was surprised to find a Hedonistic, Stressed, Syphilitic, Possessed, Lustful Priest who kept petitioning for the Chancellor of the Realm position...

It's all about good genes, you need to treat your family like a good dog breeder, kill off the ones with bad traits and only breed the ones with the best traits.

After repeated testing via Save game editing, I've discovered more or less how to make a god amongst men....it'll take many generations but by the end game you'll have a Demi-god like being as your heir to your Empire.

Key point is finding a Wife with the same trait you wish to breed into the next generation. So picking that Wife is really really important. You want her to be as young as possible and have as many similar traits as possible. Also make sure to check her lineage, I find it best to marry a Courtier with no family and hence no lineage, hence lowers the chance of bad traits.

Send off the ones with bad traits to war, I hear Jerusalem is nice with all those Doomstacks....

Is this even true anymore since the most recent patch? I am under the mindset that your children will inherit the main trait of their Guardian. I have turned the entire Irish nation into a bunch of Midas Touched rabbits. My family has almost as many members as the Capet's and its only the year 1165.

I abuse Midas Touched for the Fertility, learning, and stewardship bonus in the early game. As I am ramping up for one ruler's war reign, I will breed in my next ruler as Tough Solider and then his heir will be the same(if the war plans to continue on) or I go back to something for the economy.

Paradox you wrote a brilliant game in this sense. See how many territories you can take over just through marriage and diplomacy

[Kaedish]

The game is tougher depending on what you want out of it and what culture you pick. I began with Ireland and that was pretty easy to manage, but if you choose a HRE duchy, then you have to obey the Kaiser's whimsy and it becomes of flurry of announcements and events and they sometimes directly affect you. That saying, you don't get as much control at the beginning. If you want a bloodthirsty free-for-all, choose a Spanish/Iberian realm and then you can freely battle Muslims plus plenty of spanish neighbors (or vice-versa when you will be allowed to play Islam). You also get a better chance of getting your tail handed to you.

I've been conquered before and yet was still able to play because my sister housed me (but under her husband's name - the King of Scotland). I had to think quick and get it back from myself before she died and my home demese was lost to Scotland. So, in some ways it is possible to conquer yourself! (family-wise). Be careful which scandalous lady in your family you marry off! Yeah, the frustration in this game is fun like that!

See, that's why this game was made perfect to mod for IP's like Ice and Fire and Dune. All backstabbing sycophants and evil little sisters.

[Milkycookie]

Originally Posted by Turkrawr

Is this even true anymore since the most recent patch? I am under the mindset that your children will inherit the main trait of their Guardian. I have turned the entire Irish nation into a bunch of Midas Touched rabbits. My family has almost as many members as the Capet's and its only the year 1165.

I abuse Midas Touched for the Fertility, learning, and stewardship bonus in the early game. As I am ramping up for one ruler's war reign, I will breed in my next ruler as Tough Solider and then his heir will be the same(if the war plans to continue on) or I go back to something for the economy.

Paradox you wrote a brilliant game in this sense. See how many territories you can take over just through marriage and diplomacy

When I wrote that I was on 1.04 I think or 1.05..We're on 1.05e as of the 3rd of May 2012.

Given the number of Hotfixes, it's a little hard to pin down what works and doesn't work anymore.

Which brings me up to another point of Paradox Games. Paradox Games sends out a lot of patches for their games. Many of their patches actually change the basic mechanics of the game. Going from 1.04 to 1.05 you're actually playing a differing game since the mechanics have all changed or finally added to.

You now have De Jure Drift (not available in 1.04 and 1.05 but available from 1.05d onwards) Essentially lands becoming part of your De Jure Duchy after 100 years.(I'm still trying to see it happen, since the I'm not exactly sure how it works)

So there you go, Paradox games in a nutshell. It's hard to learn sometimes since the game radically changes patch after patch. Especially if you're new to the genre and to Paradox games. What used to work before doesn't work after a patch.

General rule of thumb is to start a new game after every patch.

Here's what I know (I think I know )

Traits and Education (Guardianship)

1. Traits are a factor (inheritable) from Father and Mother. So if you have the Genius Trait on Mom and Dad there is a chance that your child will be born with the Genius Trait. Since the Genius trait is essentially the best trait to have, I'm always trying to nurture this. With patch 1.05c I had 9 children and 6 of them were born with the Genius Trait. Subsequently, of the 6 children (paired again with Genius husbands and wives) almost all their children (about 80%) were born with the Genius Trait. Subsequently my grandchildren had almost a 100% chance of getting born with the Genius Trait.

2. Guardianship (Education Traits)
There are two things about Guardianship. Firstly, you always want to have Guardianship, since events fires for your child and you get to decide what you want to do. Secondly your Education Trait, will most probably be passed on to the Child. Education Traits are namely the Brilliant Strategist, Master Theologian, Naive Appeaser, etc series of Traits.

So if you stuff a child to a Master Theologian as Guardian he/she has a good chance to inherit from the Guardian his Education Trait. Which is why I think you're constantly getting the Midas Touched Trait. This chance of inheriting the trait is (i think) a factor of both the level of the trait, the Learning score of the Guardian and the Learning Score of the Child in question (other variables aside) determines the final rank of the Child's Education Trait when he reaches 16.

Physical Traits are the DNA stuff your dynasty can inherit successively. The family of traits are Genius, Attractive, Strong, Inbred, Quick, Slow, Imbecile, etc

Social Traits (what I call them anyways) are things like Scholar, Impaler, Hunter, Duelists, etc. These only fire if you have pre-requisites like Cruel -> Impaler, High Martial -> Hunter/Falconer (I think) etc

Then there are the Deadly Sins family of traits. Wroth, Envious, Chaste, Lustful, etc. This one I'm not too sure, since you can get them via Guardianship, Random Event, etc.

>tip< If you're going on Crusade, bring everybody. All you need to do is touchdown on one of the territories that are part of the Crusader Objective and everybody in that army will get the Crusader Trait. You get +30 relationship to everybody with that Trait, one of the easiest and best traits to have.

Lastly, the Traits like Possessed, I'm not entirely sure how to get them.

[Zaltys]

Originally Posted by Milkycookie

Traits are a factor (inheritable) from Father and Mother. So if you have the Genius Trait on Mom and Dad there is a chance that your child will be born with the Genius Trait. Since the Genius trait is essentially the best trait to have, I'm always trying to nurture this.

Good advice. I prioritize Strong trait myself though, since it makes the children healthier and less likely to die. Genius isn't that much use if all your heirs die young.

Speaking of the traits, I'd recommend getting rid of any courtiers who have negative family traits (such as Imbecile and Hunchback). I usually appoint them as bishops, since it ensures that they won't breed...

Originally Posted by Milkycookie

Lastly, the Traits like Possessed, I'm not entirely sure how to get them.

Those are from random events. Usually caused by stress in CK1, but I'm not sure how those work in CK2. I think it's mostly based on the traits, but I dunno which ones make it more likely for you to go crazy..

[Turkrawr]

Originally Posted by Zaltys

Good advice. I prioritize Strong trait myself though, since it makes the children healthier and less likely to die. Genius isn't that much use if all your heirs die young.

Speaking of the traits, I'd recommend getting rid of any courtiers who have negative family traits (such as Imbecile and Hunchback). I usually appoint them as bishops, since it ensures that they won't breed...



Those are from random events. Usually caused by stress in CK1, but I'm not sure how those work in CK2. I think it's mostly based on the traits, but I dunno which ones make it more likely for you to go crazy..

You're kidding right?
See if you can breed a family of clubfeet dwarves!

Anyone who can put together a family tree with 5 of those traited children in there will clearly have tiger blood in their body

[Bondey6678]

I don't understand, this was my first Grand Strategy game and I understood the game in about an hour of just playing around with the different menu's and options and just basically took an hour out of my gaming time to learn to play the game properly.

Some games you just don't understand straight away and you need to actually put effort in to understand how to play them, people might say "oh but a game is about enjoyment not frustration", but i'd prefer having to put a bit of effort in rather than play a game like CoD where no effort is required at all.