This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3,934 for Thursday the 31st of August 2023.
Today's show is entitled Crusader Kings 2.
It is part of the series computer strategy games.
It is hosted by Tuku Toro To and is about 38 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is Tuku Toro To rambles about her all-time favorite strategy game Crusader Kings 2.
Hi, this is Tula Turto and you are listening to the Carp Public Radio.
Today's episode is about my one of my all-time favorite games Crusader Kings 2.
This episode is inspired by the Ahuka series about the strategy computer games.
So the Crusader Kings is a Dynasty simulator set into Middle Ages.
Some sort of rule and you have to guide your Dynasty through the times.
The time frame is from 769 to 83.
It is a paradox game, so there are plenty of DLCs.
If you are interested in trying this out, don't go buying all of those.
It gets expensive.
You can just try out the base game and see if you like it or not.
You are like I said, this is a Dynasty simulator, meaning that as you value a playing as a rule,
you can get count or dash, dual code, dushes or king queen, emperor, Empress, and then some auto, auto titles depending on the DLCs you have.
You are playing as that rule, making a choices, that rule would make.
But your focus is the Dynasty.
Your ruler will die at some point, then somebody else will inherit the titles and carry on.
Your primary focus is to make sure that there is always somebody in your Dynasty that will inherit your stuff and keep going.
So there are some stats and traits and stats that affect on your character.
You can be a good op-hat in a thing like stay craft or spy craft or Marsal.
You could be an intricate weapon if you are very good at the spy craft.
And those affect what things you can do.
And basically it's not a turntable game, it's a possible real time game, real time in a sense that when it's unpost the time we'll keep taking, but of course it won't be the real real time game, but actually it won't be because otherwise that those hundreds of years would take hundreds of years to play.
You don't have any specific goals except of reaching to the end you can basically choose, but you want to do.
Sometimes I have wanted to conquer as much of the land as possible.
Sometimes I have wanted to build some really cool, cool monument to show off my power and wealth.
And sometimes it's a thing like I was playing as a Finnish tribe.
And then when it's to unite all the tribes and form the Finland as a country.
And then in the later one form the kingdom of Scandinavia, that was kind of kind of neat.
There's a lot of choices, lot of things to do in the game and those depend on what kind of culture you are playing.
If you're playing a Finnish tribe, you have quite a different choices than if you're playing as a nomadic tribe in a someday in the Siberia.
The geographical area of the game is Europe and big portions of the Asia and some portions of the Northern Africa.
Because the focus is in ruling your dynasty when keeping it alive, you of course need a spouse so that you will have somebody to inherit the stuff.
Presumably your children, but depending on the laws of your realm, somebody else might inherit your titles.
And the inheritance is a pretty big part of the game.
Lots of different kinds of systems that you can not really choose, but sort of kind of choose.
If you want to change your inheritance laws, not everybody will be happy about the change and not all choices will be always available.
One of the hardest one, for example, is the gavel kind.
It allows you to have a really big control, like you can control a lot of land, but when you die, all your titles are basically split to between the all your children.
And then the opposite end is one way you can nominate your inheritor, her, and then inherit everything.
So that's a big of play in that one.
Managing your haters will also be a big part of the game, because say you have a couple, couple sons, couple daughters, you can actually get them engaged with the children of your neighbors.
And that will form a, but that not true, but a, well, this is basically a,
those neighbors are not no longer a threat to you.
So you don't have to be afraid of them attacking you.
Of course, if you are going to marry your son to the, to the, to the princess of the next kingdom, that will have effect on the, who will inherit the kingdom in the end.
So there's a quite a bit of political maneuvering that you can do with, with engagement and marriages and shots.
And it's a good idea to get your offspring, as is the engaged, is not married soon enough, because otherwise, when they turn off the age, they will go and just marry off somebody who might not be the test from the political stand.
So because you are rule, if you are not going to deal with all, or everything by yourself, you are going to have a, what else, depending on them, what kind of,
system you have, like, mostly it's a, most system has some, most cultures have some sort of what sort of system.
This, this means that you have, for example, if you are king of the skin, king of the France, for example,
then you directly don't control all of that land, but you, you have a primary title, like you could have a,
for example, you could have set up your court in the Purgundy, and that's what you control directly and some counties.
Yeah, and then your vassants who are, well, tell your vassants, you have handed them titles and they control rest of the France.
You could, in theory, have all that land by yourself, but then everybody would hate you.
And the Piger, you, Realme, the more you will have vassants, and then more difficult it will be, because all those vassants, well, not all, some of them are happy to be of vassants, but some of them will have ambitions to replace you with themselves.
You have to keep an eye on the, all the political moves that they are making.
And here, it is a coup if you have, some, some body, who is coup, coup in spycraft, to help you to detect various plots.
Because, they, they might want to have you assassinated, or you might want to have them assassinated or something like that.
So, there's a, all kinds of political maneuvers, and then from those, your vassals, some of them are selected to form your council.
They are the closest ones to you, there's a, they offer the guidance, but they also are like, you have a, for example, Marshal.
You can send that person into a, to train your moves fast, or you can have them to help you to pull better in your country.
And your spy master can either try to detect plots against you, or they can go and sue some.
This order to some neighboring country that you want to conquer eventually.
So, they are really useful for you, but the council will, will fight for the power.
They will, like, in the beginning, for example, you can declare wars easily.
You can just, you need a castle spell, you like, you need a real reason for war, you can just, you will go, that I want to conquer this place.
But, in the beginning, you can, if you have some reason, you can start a war.
In the later one, the council might start saying, that no, we don't want to attack this one, they are going to battle, yeah, decision.
So, they are fighting for the power and you're fighting against them, because the stronger the council is, the harder it is for you to rule.
And then, council into play, you can promise favors to your council members.
And vice versa, they might promise favors for you, meaning that when the council is voting about some decision, you can calling those favors.
And make them to vote in the way that you like, would like to have them, things.
Okay, so the titles are big part of the game title means, well, it means who you are, there's been what you control is your king, you are a kingdom to rule.
And if you are count, you have counted the rule.
And if you're only a count in the game, you probably will have a tool called Duchess who is your leech.
And they might do things like, when you leech is voting a war, they don't want to only use their own manpower from their own holdings.
But they will call the vassals to provide fighting force for them.
And that's why the vassals are nice to have. Of course, if you have raised your armies of your vassals for a long time, they will get angry.
And like I said, you need a reason for war.
I can't defend your culture or what you actually are ruling.
The simplest one is that you have your counselling number to forge some documents that stated, yes, this king has a right for this piece of land, so now you can add that piece of land.
Of course, that is the slow it takes, it can take years in the game time.
And on the other hand, if you are a tribe, you have a counselling spell to just subjugate your neighbouring tribe.
You don't meet anything else, you can just say that I'm a Finnish tribe and you are a Swedish tribe, and I want your land, so let's fight for war.
But while they're conquering the lands, it's one way of growing your kingdom or real realm.
There's other ways, and I like these other ways a lot more. I like the political maneuvering in this game, because you can, if you want to land for the long term, you could say you are king of France, and you'll notice that you're neighbouring king of
Spain for example, example that they have a daughter who is unmarried, and then they have couple sons who are older than them.
So, and by the inheritance laws that those sons would inherit the kingdoms to stay.
You can just have your son engaged with that princess of the Spain, and then at some point you can arrange accidents, like plots against those other people in the line of success and making sure that in the end that princess will actually be the queen of the Spain.
And they are offspring who you have said that he will be of your dynasty, not the Spanish dynasty, that this can be said in the new negotiating about the marriage terms.
So, that son who is of your dynasty will inherit the kingdom of Spain.
So, this will take a couple generations to come into the fruition, so it's a slow that you can grab a big piece of land if you get lucky.
Another thing that I did in the, when I was playing, I said that the two of Purgundi was that the, the, the, the, was a kingdom who was a, they had an elective monarchy.
So, basically all the, all the dukes, when the king guys all the dukes get together and they vote who of the dukes will be the next king.
And I wasn't part of that kingdom in any way, so I first conquered one small douche.
So, I could get, I would be a book in that kingdom.
I was also a king of the friends at that time, but I also had that title of the book.
That need that I would vote in those, those elections for the next king.
And then I just needed to party up with all the dukes or rather enough of the dukes.
Pride them have throw them parties, give them gifts or all that stuff, so that they would vote me.
So, in the end, I got that kingdom through a voting.
And sometimes, they said, just pure luck, pure coincidence.
In one game I was so, I think I was a king at that point in the, I didn't even see actually king of friends again.
And next to me was the duzantine empire, which is huge, like the one of the most scariest,
empire in the game, the gigantic.
So, I tried to give a good turn with the neighbors, the Samsung dukes.
But I just left the whole setting empire, this otherwise, there was nothing I could do against them.
They were so huge and powerful, but I kept good turns with those dukes that were my neighbors.
And then I get a message that one of those dukes has said that they don't like the current empire, Emperor,
and think that I would be a better emperor, and have declared a civil war.
I'm of course, yeah, whatever, I cannot do anything about that.
It will not affect me in any way, except that couple years later, they actually managed to one, that civil war,
and whole Byzantine empire was handed me on a silver plate.
Which sounded first like this really cool, what I wanted, but then I realized that I was a French king,
speaking French, having a French culture and all that.
And then suddenly I went, Emperor of Byzantine, my court gets moved to the other side of the Mediterranean,
and everybody else, they have different religions, different cultures, and everybody hate my cuts.
There was just nobody from nowhere.
So rest of the lifetime of that, now Emperor was spent pacifying that empire,
and no way I could do anything about expanding or anything.
Rest of the capitalist decades when the key thing of the was also as happy as possible.
But after the next person in the line came to be an interim thing, it's got a bit easier.
So there's some, there's some real funny events there.
And of course, if you are playing a Catholic rule, there's a really powerful ally or opponent,
you can party up with the Pope.
So basically, priming them and sending your court chaplain into the room to improve your terms.
And when you are in a good terms with the Pope, you can ask them to excommunicate somebody,
other Catholic rule on which means that you can attack them freely, and then you can just craft their land.
Of course, it means that others can attack people can do that to you too.
So if you are playing Catholic rule, you'd better be in a good terms with the Pope.
Okay, so I...
I don't like the whole Basel managing thing.
That you have plenty of Basels that you have to look after.
I mean, it depends on what role you are playing if you are.
Emperor for example, you will have tons of Basels if you are.
King you will have less of Basels and all your laws and traditions will affect on how many Basels you can effectively pick.
But when it's in Basels, it's important, part of the game.
Basically, you have to make sure that they hate you less than they hate each other.
If that's the case, then things are usually fine.
If laws are fighting with each other, inside you, they aren't king, kingdom, empire, whatever.
It's not actually as bad as it sounds because it means that when they are fighting with each other, they are not fighting with against you.
Sometimes, somebody will manage to convince other Basels to form a plot and say that they want to be a king instead of current king.
And those are always dangerous situations.
You have to try to first break up that plot in where your another is that doesn't work.
You could decide trying assassinate that Basel, which is risky because if you get caught, people will hate you even more.
And if you don't manage, you have a civil war in your hand.
And that is always a tricky situation.
So, if that is the hate you less than they hate each other and there is no one single Basel who is stronger than everybody else.
And this game is a little bit different, maybe, from the other forex games, that there is all kinds of funny events that they happen in the game.
Like, for example, you rule, there is a thing called rule of focus that means what particular aspect that rule is focusing.
It might be that they are focusing to be as good rule as possible, or they might be focusing on the hunting of the Basel.
There is lots of things to choose on, and this will affect the events like if you have a person who is focusing on hunting, you can get yourself a hunting dog.
And that actually boosts your health a little bit, you can go on hunting trips.
And from there you can bring a, like, what's that called trophy?
Like, some, you can show off how strong you are to your Basel's by bringing, bringing down a beer for example.
So, of course, hunting trips can be that you might have an accident, if you are hunting a dangerous animal, or somebody actually might arrange an accident to happen to you.
You can have cramped ornaments, you can build observatories, all kinds of all kinds of things and these little events are actually, but really brings up this game to life.
Managing your coat is interesting, like, you have vassals there, they are the big part of the game.
But you also have all those minor titles depending on the culture you are playing as you like, you might have a keeper of the swans.
It is basically just a fancy title that you can grind to someone, they get little prestige boots, boost from that, like other people think that they are more important.
And that's, that's all, that doesn't, and yeah, of course, it's happy because you grinded them that.
So, and those small minor titles are actually good way to get your next in line, to get started with their life.
Because if other people, when they will be a ruler, if other people already think that they are important and prestigious, it's easier to start, start it that.
Okay, and I like to approach them from the role playing game point of view, like, if I'm playing, the game I'm not thinking, and that usually thinking what is the optimal choice I'm just thinking, what would this specific character do.
And, like, it's fun, it's fun. Some of those events can be really powerful, if you know how to take other things of them, like, you might have your martial in the county to organize a fighting force, and then suddenly you have a 500 men who is just showing up and saying that,
if you want to go and rate the Venice, for example, like, if you're playing, say, Finland, you can actually take a long boat, roll all the way to the Venice and rate it, and then come back with a loads of gold.
If you are successful, that is. And, of course, if you don't get those 500 men who do something, soon enough, they will go home and be unhappy about the whole thing.
That's not good for you as a rule. So, the game is pretty complex. I'm probably misremembering all the things, like, it's about managing your court, managing your vassals, then you have the technology to preserve, it's not as big as it says Civilization.
It's a basically it's a small improvement over time, but it will affect the game a little bit. You can, if you have a plenty of money, you can build a bonus, you could, say, build a huge category, that takes hundreds of years to complete, takes a lot of money to.
But it will be a plan, and it will give you a boost to your country, realm, whatever you want to go with.
And, of course, you can try to capture those, from other realms.
Then, there's a, especially if you are playing as a take-ons in the game, say, if you describe, in the beginning of the game, the religion is a underiform, meaning that it varies a lot, there's no central authority, it's, will it's basically the will it's an injury.
Then, actually, it is every percent of the game, but every city has a little bit different customs and beliefs, so it's not very big one.
But if you manage to, I don't remember, exact details, but you need to, first of all, you need to have a control of all the holy sites of that back under religion, and enough of,
religious authority, and then you can actually reform the religion, you can create your own religion there, you have a head of the religion, then you have the customs and everything, freedom down, and that gives you more, more control for that religion.
And, of course, there's the use of effects in the religions like catalysts and tentesa, the Indian one has a much more nuanced system.
But if you want to focus on that, be free, and when I'm playing the game, I usually, at the couple years in, as a new ruler, I already have a sort of idea to which direction I want to take.
Sometimes, sometimes, I want somebody to be like the peak of the muscle frubers, so that they can do an auto-nobles, and they can conclude the lines and everything.
Sometimes, I want to be very pure, and just be a good example to the people, sometimes, I want to be a book for who's doing studies.
The later one is interesting, you can, if you have resources, you can filter observatory, you can start writing a book, and then you actually detect that, hey, it's a thing that the Earth isn't a center of the universe, but the Earth lives around the sun, and then you get to choose to do, I'm going to reveal this to everyone or not, and if I reveal this, then, of course, I will answer the church,
and things like that. You can join in, depending on the realization you have, of course, you can join up in a secret society, that's relatively late addition to the game.
I have mixed feelings about that, it adds something to do in the game when you don't really have much to do.
It's super powerful, like you, and I did mixed feelings about that.
There's a secret societies like you, who join in to assassins, for example, and then you, within that society, you can start, that's like a completely unutter level,
you know, that you are there inside of that society that is not confined by the borders of the countries, you can climb on the hierarchy and Peter rule of that society, and that's interesting again.
Well, I'd probably missing a lot of, but like it's very complex game, yeah, and there's a crucial thing that I will link the show notes, the basic idea is that you guide your dynasty through the times, and you try to prove whatever you want to,
that times, technology doesn't improve hugely, then that is always the same country is always the same. Ah, different, for what test is, one of the central things about the game is that test, that's your, and the fact of, like, you, the fact of countries is the, it's what it is currently, and that's your,
means that those that by the law of the traditions would be like this, so if, if, say, a French kingdom manages to conquer the, some, does this from the Spain,
then those, does this are the fact of the French kingdom, but they are not that you are part of the French kingdom, which means that the,
the Spanish king has claimed to do some titles because they, they are traditional ideas, they are just captured by the French king, so they can try and concute them back, that's a, one of the,
one of the most common casus bellies are reasons for the war, and that actually opens up an interesting, interesting way of expanding your country,
say, you are king of some country, and then your neighboring country has some, dashing that you would like to grab, and you noticed that is somebody who has a claim to that title,
but isn't the current rule, they are unlanded, they are, they have a claim to that title, but they don't have any land of what themselves, so you can invite that person into your court,
what you can say, just say that, come here and I make you count, okay, not that person is in your court, he is your vassal, and he has claimed to that dashing in the neighboring kingdom,
so you can press that claim, you can declare that war and say that by, by the right pool, that is, this is a vassal of mine has a right pool claim,
so you are going to conquer this land, after you have conquered that land, you don't get that dashing, you are just,
waging that war behind of that another person, but because this person, who, who, is now two of that place, is also part of, is also,
count in your court, so he is your vassal, he stays as your vassal, if you are king or enter,
and now that sushi is actually part of your kingdom, the big part of the learning about this game for me,
was just playing and seeing what happens, of course I read that quite a bit of the weekend, watch the tutorial,
but big part of the funnel of what, learning the game is just playing, seeing what happens and learning from that,
because that's probably how the king's attacking the times, also did that, they did not have a,
uh, leaky to check how to, how to best conquer the whole Europe, they just tried the best, they probably had the
other vassal and what, to help them, but hey made up, they made up stuff as they went along,
uh, then the, uh, all right, there's a, I mentioned those minor titles, like he gave,
of the swamps, some of those are more important than others, one of the most important one is
the court physician, that's the, that's basically the doctor who is looking after you,
and you can, well, nominate basically anyone to that position, but it, it is a very, really good idea
to spend some code and time to find somebody who can do that stuff effectively, because when you get sick,
if you have a, if you don't have a confident doctor to look after you, you're going to die,
or, or you can, going to have a, some, the, the ability thing this is, because the game is
setting to the middle age, there's, of course, the, uh, chance of black dead, like the clan plague, arriving
and that is, that is just going to steep through the whole whole Europe, that is going to have a huge
effect when it happens, and at that point, you actually have actually option to close the
gauge of your castle, so you are just hold up inside of the castle, ruling guilty of quite a bit more
difficult from there, the people outside of the gates would like that at all, and eventually you will
run out of the full, there's a whole event chain relating to this, and first time I had
to plague it, it was extremely scary, scary event, you can also have a small, small, small
disease, it is like measles, it is, it will form a pandemic, it's a bad thing, but it's not as bad as the
black dead, all you can have just a flu, the funny thing is that sometimes you're not so
competing doctor will prescribe you it some treatment, like I had once I had a flu, so the doctor
just decided that you get rid of that by doing more of the, what gave you, that's so
coroning, coroning in the court forest, but naked in the night, and of course I could even
wash it after that in the game, so it's fun game, I think I haven't checked that, that the
base game is actually might be actually free to plague, or anything, I haven't been free to play
a couple years ago at least, but the DLCs will cost, or you can try to subscribe some model if you
are uncertain if you like some DLCs, and you can just pay some modest amount of money and
play with all the DLCs for a bit and see how they change the game, and if you have any questions,
comments, feedback, hit me at the Hagar public radio or even better, record your own episode and
tell how you conquered the third thing that you're going to do, this is Tula Turata signing off.
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