Let's Play the Megacampaign

[doom3607]

Twelve hours are up. Ireland wins! And Q did it. So, without further ado...

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THE MEGACAMPAIGN: CRUSADER KINGS: DEUS VULT

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Suddenly, you all see a flash of bright light, and find yourselves standing in a room made of rough stone, poorly illuminated by old, wood torches. A strange man dressed in an even stranger set of... pajamas? says "Welcome to Ireland! I am Q, and I have a little challenge for all of you. You see, you all seem to think you can rule a nation, at least privately. I want to test that by making you the advisors to an ancient line of nobles in old Earth history, around the year 1066 Anno Domini if you happen to know the planet. I'm going to leave you here for nine hundred years, and we'll see just how good you actually are at what you think you can do. You'll be immortal of course, don't worry about age. In any case, here comes one of the Duke's servants to get you up to speed. Ask him anything you need to know, he knows to be completely truthful with you."

With that, Q snaps his fingers and vanishes in a flash of light. Then, a door opens and a man wearing a well-made set of livery steps into the room. He says "Hello, good sirs. My name is Conn. I don't see why I wasn't allowed to drink whiskey for a day before this... I'll be instructing you on the current goings-on in the duchy, introduce you to the Duke and his family, and then I'll inform you of anything you want to know that I can tell you after this. And then I'll go find some whiskey... To begin...

...and that's how the duchy is going. But of course, you also need to know about the Duke himself...

...and that's all I can really tell you about him. So... let's go introduce the lot of you to the Duke." And with that, Conn walks back out the door he came in by, and you all follow. You find yourselves in a throne room, not a particularly nice one even by the standards of the time, but a throne room none the less. There is a fat old man sitting on the throne, gulping down whiskey by the gallon from the looks of it. He sees you and Conn, and says "Hey, you... you... you'sh the new peoplsh, right? You'sh the ones that that Q guy shaid would be uh... uhd... advishing me? Get yer asses over heresh, then, and introdoosh yerselvesh."

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So... how awful is my drunk-speak? Tips would be nice, since you will hear a lot more of it. Conn's sobriety was a one-time thing, anyway. So... introductions! Begin!

[KlavoHunter]

But then you'd be mortal.

Yeah, but then at least there's a chance we could get laid!

[doom3607]

True, true... don't worry, you can start becoming nobles... oh, about the day after CK ends. Give it a few centuries.

[HMS Sophia]

So, what do the above things mean?
I assume:
We're a Semisalic consanguinity (whatever the hell that is), with traditional custom and ecclisical balance?
With the chancellor and such, what is the highest number their stat can reach?
The treasury screen makes sense.

Am I right in saying we have two vassals, two sons, a wife, a dead dad and brother, and all sorts of successors?

[doom3607]

Precisely. Note that people do show up multiple times on the page- for example, the first two heirs are the two sons.

Semisalic consanguinity is a method of inheritance of titles, like all the rest. Ignore gavelkind.

Highest skill numbers I've ever seen, now that we can no longer carry out eugenics to get super-kings, is about 15. But that's sort of a once-or-twice-a-game thing. 12 is really good, and about the highest you can routinely hope for.

A few things of note on the treasury screen- every tax we change affects the loyalty of various factions. For instance, we can save money on our church dues, but then the clergy likes us less and the Pope might get pissed. The peasents don't like census tax increases, the burghers hate toll increases, and if we increase scutage the nobles send less knights to join our armies.

Traditional custom and ecclesical balance, I believe, mean the we balance the power of the nobles and the Church, so they both kinda like us. I'll check on the exact differences there and the differences between Primogeniture and Consanguinity. Gavelkind and Elective Law will not be used. The semi simply means that male sons of our female children can inherit. So, for instance, if a future king only has daughters, then the oldest daughter's oldest son can inherit, as opposed to the line simply ending if it were plain salic. People like you more if it's plain salic, though. Choices, choices...

[HMS Sophia]

Well I'm very happy with all of that
I'm certainly comfortable with that to begin with.
DO we have any forces at our disposal? I'm considering introducing General Montgomery, military attaché from the future!

[doom3607]

Ah.. four units. I'm unsure of their strength or composition at the moment. You get a unit of troops for each territory you hold. Problem is, some nobles may not want to let you use their troops for your war, or they may deploy them under their own command and go do their own thing, or they may not deploy their forces until you deploy yours... goddamn nobles. I'll be very happy when we're finally in EU3.

[HMS Sophia]

Hmm. Well, that'll do I suppose. Can you build/strengthen units further?
I'm hoping you can...
Or is it a case of raising a levy when you go to war? That would be quite cool.

[doom3607]

It's basically levies, yeah.

[HMS Sophia]

Hmm.
And in terms of territories, we are the three green areas on the first page map right?
Sorry, lots of questions with probably simply explanations...
What's our standing with nearby territories?

[doom3607]

Four territories, actually- we also have the Isle of Man. And we're basically neutral with everyone, with no outstanding claims on anyone, which kinda sucks. We're going to want to give the Isle to a courtier who doesn't hate us for the prestiege boost another Count gives, then wait until we hit 150 so we can grab a claim on one of the independant Counts near us. Then we steal his land, wait for 150, and repeat. This'll take a while...

[HMS Sophia]

That makes sense. What do you mean in terms of hitting 150?
Also I think going north is the best plan, in terms of conquering. That collection of blues to the south isn't very friendly looking...

[doom3607]

Actually, we want to take Mide- it lets us create a new Duchy, which gives a lot of prestiege. Hitting 150 means 150 prestiege, which is about what we need to grab a claim to a count's title, which is what we need to do before we can declare war.

[HMS Sophia]

Huh, so you do. I was looking purely at land rather than the titles that go along with it. Well then, we would have to be making friends with those to the north and south then. We don't want to get invaded now do we

[doom3607]

Actually, I just played another short game. Conquered Mide fairly quickly to snag the title, and then was friendly enough with Sligo and had enough prestiege to get them to join voluntarily. Then England invoked a claim on the title of Count of Sligo and I got dragged into a war with the King of England and his good buddy the King of goddamn France. 'Bout five thousand troops landed on me and utterly flattened my army. I think befriending someone big and scary might be in order. Like Germany, maybe.

[HMS Sophia]

Could you not have simply handed sligo over? Or do you get dragged into the war no matter what?
Germanic state alliances sounds like a plan.

[doom3607]

Well, I could have. I didn't notice England was allied with France of all people until I actually went to war on Sligo's behalf. And if I did turn Sligo over, that would kind of set back my plans for the conquest of Ireland a bit. Having to deal with the English is... not good.

[HMS Sophia]

Well, yeah, it would be preferable to not hand over sligo, but If its case of going to war with England and its allies, or losing a province, I would much rather lose the province, because at least we can eventually conquer the rest of Ireland (and then go take England)...

[doom3607]

Wrong. Even all of Ireland simply isn't enough to take England. It might be enough to take Scotland, but not England. The next step I had in mind was smashing up some of the Muslims in Spain- we don't need a reason to go to war with them since we're Christian and they aren't.

[HMS Sophia]

Fair enough. Well, I would like to eventually like to take England, at least only so I can set up a manor house near Portsmouth and begin creation of the Royal Navy...
Spain sounds good though. I wasn't thinking about more distant targets. I will approve of this

[doom3607]

Good to hear that, General! By the way, what time period are you supposed to be from? The world wars? Now? The invasion from Tau Ceti in the early twenty-second century?

[HMS Sophia]

I'm not sure. Maybe it should be General Montgomery the third, plucked from the bridge of his attack ship off the shoulder of Orion...
Yeah, actually, that. Early twenty-second century, Montgomery was preparing for combat against rebels fighting against the oppressive Empire. He as snatched from the bridge by Q, and dumped into 11th century Ireland...

[doom3607]

That would be a bit of a shock. Hmmm... Actually, idea... I might be able to continue the megacampaign storyline past the end of HoI actually using something like Armada 2526 or Sword of the Stars. Then good ol' General Monty would be back in his natural environment...

[HMS Sophia]

That would make me very happy indeed

[HMS Sophia]

Hmm. Anyway, what do we need to actually get into this. More people?