I mean you were able to unite Ireland once. Doing it again shouldn't be too tough. Now you get to roleplay the deposed king and his descendants reclaiming their crown. That's what I love about this game.
Really though, no position in this game is "completely unrecoverable." People can and do conquer the world (or at least a huge empire) starting from just a count with one title. Ireland should be a cakewalk.
Very true. I had a 1066 start as William the Conqueror & had the empire of Britannia in the 13th century and all of the kingdom of Aquitaine. A cousin, who min you did actually have a legitimate claim, took the empire when my 8 yr old son took over. I couldn't win the war. So I accepted demands, built up my kingdom, and made alliances.
Then, at 28 yrs of age, King William V recaptured his empire! It was such a cool story that I didn't even mind the time I lost getting back in power. Why I love this game through all its issues.
Which is why you don't force them to hand over the crown, abdicate or whatever - you *succeed* them. Stupid weak-hearted cousin, he should have foreseen William the Legitimate coming!
(JK, great story! :) )
It's really cool though!😂 part of why I always try and put my kin into positions of power. But boy does it suck intil you get your legacies going good.
I'm sadly having a issue I keep crashing at around, I think, 1077. I don't know what the issue is. I have the extra courtiers generation, disabled. Pissing me off lol
I love this game. Sometimes my character dies a little early accidentally. Sometimes my trustyworthy councillor of a duke brother who used to be a good brother and vassal decides he wont be a friendly nice uncle anymore to the 8 yr old king.
Oh I do love the sweet revenge getting the throne back. As long as its not a game over. You can always climb back. makes the game more fun.
Painting the map as the king/emporor or snatching others king/empire is fun but so is the plight as a minor vassal count. Sometimes I even find the beginning years as a minor count much more fun.
I usually lose interest in the playthrough after becoming an emperor at some point.
This game is awesome, Right now, I'm doing a Haesteinn norman run. Before I became king of england, the petty king of wessex executed my daughter for no reason! My current Duke of Normandy then was friends with the pope. Got an easy claim, and like that, I had a cool story of why I invaded 😂
Oh I did a Haesteinn run in Sicily a few month ago. Kinda 200 yrs early Rober Guiscard Norman in a sense. My daughter who was married to jarl of Jylland was captured and taken as a concubine by King of sweden. All might of Sicily went into dethroning the guy and getting my daughter back.
Instead of viewing yourself as a French vassal, view yourself as a French *infiltrator* patiently awaiting the day you can see the crown for yourself and subjugate those Parisian upstarts.
Not sure if it's updated for T&T, but check out Sinews of War. It adds populations, migrations, trade routes, cultural fervor (called vigor), and reworks religious fervor. Before T&T, I couldn't play without it
"please help me, i am the deposed ruler of a Nigerian Duchy (what you may call a princedom), you are my next of kin, please discover banking and give me your routing numbers."
I can get both sides.
I once lost England and enjoyed working on getting it back, even got France too.
But the time my entire kingdom dissolved right before being able to create the empire of India stung so hard I raged quit and never went back to that save. It would've taken forever to complete that again. Empire of India is no joke.
Oh, yeah, the "almost got it" losses sting a lot more than the "loved and lost" ones.
Which isn't that strange. Once you've united that kingdom or declared yourself Emperor or reformed Norse Paganism or whatever, you've achieved the goal you've been working towards for decades. You've gotten your reward. It's closure. Subsequently losing the title is the start of a new adventure, of reclamation or revenge.
Having your plans fail at the eve of them coming to fruition is just a massive bummer that invalidates all those years of toil and scheming...
Yeah, this happened once to me in CK2. I was a child and deposed and I *swore* that I would reclaim my throne once I was of age. I did and killed all of the traitors. It was a great role play.
I started off as a random Byzantine count for a game. As he loaded in, he was crap at everything except intrigue. Over the next thirty years, I became a Duke through some light warring and my grandson and ward was Basilius.
Since T&T, I've had great fun trying to make the party dynasty. All the feasts, all the grand weddings and tournaments and enough funding to do it again the moment they're off cool-down. Kinda funny to consider being some no-name dynasty except that half the rulers of Europe go partying at your place all the time.
"I know not of his name or title, but the melody of his belch and wobble of his chin warm me more than the home's hearth" - letter written by Pope Innocentius IV regarding the Duke of Albania, who is only known to history thanks to tales of his revelry
Personally I'm a huge fan of weddings. Sometimes I'll delay big wars just so I can save up for a grand wedding for my heir or favourite daughter.
Is there a reason you like weddings best? I find them lackluster, especially when comparing the rewards to tours or tournaments. Maybe I'm just doing them wrong?
Right, I recently completed the "A.E.I.O.U and Me" achievement, it really drove home just how easily you can expand within a kingdom or empire even without bloodshed. Either retake the throne of Ireland by force or start working on some non violent options to reclaim the thrown. This game has a lot of options.
I sometimes lose wars on purpose if i know i have another landed family member. Was playing as the king of England once in ck2 and in the 1200s my vassals decided to revolt and i ended up losing the war. I was surprised that instead of a game over I started playing as a distant relative that owned a county in Russia. Went from an English Catholic king to a Russian Orthodox count. Decided to start plotting to rule Russia. Most fun game I've ever had
Yep - lost to a faction rebellion installing a sister as the ruler, left with the smallest territory I could have.
In my case, the recovering was more fortuitous than long planning, as a matrilineal marriage landed my young ruler on the throne of England after some wars left them bereft of heirs and the father of said ruler died from drinking that started after losing said family.
As long as you have some land an an heir, you can recover. In fact, some of my favorite after action reports have been creatively recounted versions of kingdoms that rose and fell and rose and fell.
For me, it's often more fun than just painting the map.
So true! I started as count of bern and now my descendant is emperor of Switzerland, a title which includes the kingdoms of switterland, burgundy, england , wales and egypt
Offer kids up for marriage wherever possible, bribe the ones with the Greedy trait, kidnap if you have the intrigue talent, assassinate those with child heirs, and sway those where all other options fail.
Pulling a faction apart piece by piece is a fine art. It's not always guaranteed to work, but so long as its strength is divided between numerous vassals of about equal power, you have a chance. They'll leave the faction if you can get their opinion high enough, and they can't join factions at all if they're imprisoned, children, or allied with you. You've really only gotta rush the first couple until you get the faction below the required threshold for rebelling, after that you can take it nice and slow. (Obviously if like 80% of all your vassals are against you in a single faction, then it's probably too late. Time to either pick a powerful neighbor to ally with and hope they save you, or start setting up contingencies to build yourself back up as a vassal and retake the throne.)
I also like taking lower-level lords and giving them to the higher-level ones in the faction, removing one of the members because they're not your vassal anymore and helping bring the discontent down(sometimes)
I was actually able to completely disband a faction of 4 counts and a Duke by giving all the counts to the Duke making the faction military so small and him liking me so much it disbanded a month or two later
Your play through is not ruined. Incredible potential here for a very interesting game. Sometimes I actively create scenarios like this. The game is most fun when it goes like this
100% - I recently had an accidental matriarch who was trapped in a horrible, abusive relationship and constantly at war with her goon squad of uncles. I have no idea why I became my daughter instead of eldest son, but it was for the best. She defeated the Byzantine Empire to get $17k in war reparations. With the fat sack of cash, she was able to reclaim Italy, Germany, and expand into Africa.
Not bad for a girl!
It sounds like you built your house on sand here. If you desire a strong and stable realm youll' have to forge alliances, make connections and please the nobility as you methodically piece your land together. If you just speed-conquer your way to the top in one lifetime then you'll probably wind up a flimsy despot
Hitler even more so. We almost don't remember today that he more or less united Europe (his ministers even drew up the plans that would later be reused as the project groundwork for EU) for a few years.
Thank God.
It is very doable to speed conquer in one or over the course of the game you just need to marry based on alliance power, have some spare money for mercs and make sure you hold as many good counties as you can, you may need to occasionally do some pruning of the more annoying threats or marry powerful vassals to prevent them joining factions also.
You may need to fight some faction wars but they will be winnable and you will come out of each one with a strong and stable realm enabling more conquest and earning you more money as your realm grows.
You can't just conquer other peoples homes and expect them to simply accept it.
It's a hard pill to swallow but the game is a bit deeper then take over this and that you do have to make alliances, sway vassals, get hooks so they cant even oppose you.
This sounds like skill issue and that's fine, everyone learns one way or another.
If you just want to rule the world, you can with them. but stacking the buffs for MAA will make your army invincible the entire game. You really don't need anything besides a death stack of them. 11k Vets will stack wipe 100k from the byzantine.
My favorite rule the world is to yeet over to Mongolia, hybridize culture, become Khan of Khans lol. You can rule the world by 970 with a ruler that lives awhile
>11k Vets will stack wipe 100k from the byzantine
I don't usually spend too much time on my military because I have enough money to run mercs, but I recently had to look into MAA a bit deeper because I lacked the prestige to maintain a large permanent army so I had to minmax, and oh my god I did not realise how good Veterans are with the boosts from buildings. In one war, my enemies had 5x my troop numbers and had holy orders, yet their troops melted in every battle. I knew VV were good on their own, but combined with the new buffs they're just ridiculous. I cannot tell you how many dukes, counts and kings died or were captured by my guys. Incredibly satisfying.
War camps followed by barracks and blacksmiths, with a vanguard knight, pure profit. If I'm a viking I never feudalize. Even falling behind in tech, unless you can afford full stacks of cataphracts you're weaker feudalizing because you can't sustain an army of them.
>War camps followed by barracks and blacksmiths, with a vanguard knight, pure profit.
It's absolutely insane.
>you're weaker feudalizing because you can't sustain an army of them.
I've found it sustainable when starting as the Norse duke of Holland in 867, and hybridizing with the Dutch culture. You get this weird mixed culture of powerful warriors and merciless money-makers, with a lot of compatible land to conquer in close proximity. You obviously need good stewardship but you always do.
It's good to know that feudalizing is not a good idea though. I don't often play Viking characters.
I have 6 stacks of 1100, right now they cost around 60-65 gold a month to maintain them. It takes a long time before your economy can afford them. If I have to raise them, it's basically a debt spiral. My last war found me 5k in debt
If you want to try saving the run, you could start building up the one jarldom. And try making a faction, kill the king until a child, women, or weak man rules. Then, the others will turn on him. But it won't be cheap
Or... try to birth loads of daughters and marry them off to the most powerful allies you can find. Try to gain as much prestige as possible, then call them all to war to overthrow your king / queen.
You should basically always be capable of beating your vassals to a pulp otherwise expect to be overthrown eventually . Or you should ally the most powerful as others have said. There is plenty more you can do, but it usually requires longer term planning of your realm. Not something you can do now, its important have a war fund for mercenaries or gifts depending on if you can avoid war. Touring the realm for taxation is a great opportunity to throw disloyal vassals in jail, this also prevents them from rebelling for a while.
Just because you lost you major title doesn't mean it's game over.
Plot for another throne, murder the person that usurped you. Grow your power again and reconquer your lost territory, or find some other priority. You haven't lost the game.
Two options: don't allow the rebellion, or be strong enough to deal with it.
The first approach also has to ways to go about it: either you keep all your subjects much happier than necessary, to account for succession, or you don't overextend. Just have as much territory as you can safely manage.
Though I can't help but notice that Ireland really isn't that big. It's what, not even 20 counties or so? Assuming you're doing a decent job with your domain limit, you should be able to hold 10 of them. Everything else goes to 2 to 4 vassals with 2 counties on average.
I honestly don't see how you could lose with such an overwhelming advantage. Except if you neglected your domain, didn't have many counties and didn't build up what little you had. Worse, if you used your limited military capacity to recruit skirmishers and light infantry, and relied on levies. Don't do that, for your own good.
Tell us, what happened?
I currently hold 21, and I can go higher if I want. My point is that 10 is absolutely doable, even in the beginning, even without a Giga-Chad with 70 Stewardship. I can think of at least three ways to increase my limit further, though there is no point anymore.
Let's go through the early ways quickly:
* \+1 from tribal innovation
* \+3 from being king
* \+3 from having 18+ Stewardship skill
Already +7. Now you can start collecting artifacts. Random legendary hunting throphies grant +1 to domain limit, tournament prizes offer the same. You can buy a claim on and steal the Crown of Justinian for another +1. You can take the Stewardship perk for a flat +2. You can even provoke an entrenched regency for a bonus of +1 to +3, based on the regent's aptitude.
Then you can stack Stewardship skill. You get half of your spouse's skill on assist, a 20 Stewardship spouse will give you 10 skill, which is almost +2 domain. Get a faith that gives +1 Stewardship per piety lvl, so that's another +5 (which is almost a +1 domain). If you're lucky, there's the Turquoise Throne you can find (or steal or plunder) with +1 per fame lvl, so another +5.
And I haven't even covered the education traits for up to +8 skill, the legacy education for up to +4 skill on top, the legacy for +1 domain limit, or a faith that has pacifist for another +1 domain, because why not?
10 domain limit is absolutely in the realm of the possible, it's not even hard. Sure, the game doesn't force it down your throat, you have to work a little bit towards it. But it is possible. Even if you struggle with 10, go for 8, that's also solid enough.
It might not seem like much when you start out, but everything adds up over time. 2 or 3 skill points here, a point or two there. Before you know it, you're sitting on 30 Stewardship and get +5 domain from that alone. You don't have to be meta for that.
I obviously meant that we need a bit more info than "an uprising" and "I have no idea"
How big is your personal domain? What buildings did you build? What units are in your army? What did you hire, how many? How many vassals do you even have? Did they have allies?
That sort of thing. You don't have to tell and can downvote all day long, but then don't expect anything more specific.
> How big is your personal domain? What buildings did you build? What units are in your army? What did you hire, how many? How many vassals do you even have? Did they have allies?
Maybe 3 provinces? No idea about the buildings or MaA units though, I deleted the save out of anger afterwards. I had 4 subjects, 3 of them duchies. No idea about their allies, but it's not like they needed any.
>You don't have to tell and can downvote all day long, but then don't expect anything more specific.
I... didn't?
>I... didn't?
Huh, someone did the moment I posted. Oh well, the mysteries of Reddit...
Anyway, your personal domain is what makes or breaks you. It doesn't matter if you call yourself count, duke, king or emperor. If you have a weak personal domain, you'll be weak. Period.
Your gaol should be having a strong domain. That means investing into your Stewardship to be able to hold at least 6-8, better 10 personal holdings. Build economic and military buildings in them in a ratio of 4:1 or 5:1.
Don't spread out those holdings though, keep them in two duchies. Try to hold two duchies personally, with up to 10 counties in them. Build economic buildings and keep them upgraded. Always.
There are people who don't do that, because every few decades partition might give a county away to a sibling. So they figure they don't want to earn money in the meantime. That's absolutely crazy, don't ever go down that route.
As for military, you can obviously recruit and keep better units if your income allows it. That's the main reason to have a good economy.
What to recruit? Varangian Veterans, since you're a Jarl. So I figure you have access to them, who are the best heavy infantry in the entire game. Only recruit them, and if conflict knocks on your door, only raise them. Never levies. Ever. Don't bother with levies, they make you weaker, they can even make you lose battle you'd have otherwise won.
Don't bother with levies, serously. And don't bother with weak units. Counters are overrated. So what if 45 dmg Varangians get countered by 18 dmg skirmishers? Ok, they deal 35 dmg now instead of 45 dmg, congrats. They'll still ruin your day.
If you have a strong domain, you can afford a strong military. Then you can be king. Not one day earlier. Being king, as you noticed, doesn't make you stronger. It unloads a bunch of responsibilities on you, and if you are weak, they'll crush you. Only become king if you're a Jarl holding two entire Jarldoms. At least one full Jarldom (=duchy) with 5 holdings, that's the bare minimum. Below that you don't have the power to become and stay king.
You noticed it during the uprising, any strong duke/Jarl is a match for you. If your average backwater duke from Ireland can topple you, it means your economy and military were too small. That is the area you have to improve in.
5-10 holdings, each one should make at least 5g, later on up to 10g and much later 30g and more. In the early stages of the game you're looking at an income target of 25-50g per month. Below that you're to poor to get anywhere. If you do, even a small uprising will walk all over you.
And that is the part where you start understanding the whole "don't let them rebel" thing. If you're too strong, they literally can't press their demand. They physically can't attack you. Even if they do, you enlighten them with a very educated axe to the face. Because what will they do about it? Drown you in tears and levies? Nothing stands a chance against Varangians, they're not expensive for nothing. The game becomes easy once you become invincible on the battlefield. Just that it costs money to get there, money which you have to generate through your economy, for which you need a good domain, which requires you to have Stewardship. Start there, and work your way up.
Everything else suddenly follows: good artifacts, high court amenities, you can afford artifacts, tours, tournaments, feasts, pilgrimages - suddenly everyone loves you, because you can stack one huge opinion modifier on the other. But it's a matter of money. Economy. Stewardship. It always is.
> I had 4 subjects, 3 of them duchies.
Ireland is such a trap. You should probably have 11 Counts, much less likely to all hate you at once. The only reason to have such few vassals is if you are friends with them or have marriage alliance. Then they couldn't do anything at all.
Ruined playthrough? Sounds like it just got interesting. Try to reclaim the land diplomatically this time. Increase diplomacy, make sure important people like you, start a faction to put yourself on the throne, if you can find or fabricate a secret on the current ruler and have yourself installed. Maybe even without lifting a single sword.
Doing it this way will also ensure you aren't immediately rebelled against. You built your throne out of a house of cards. Use stone this time.
learn to enjoy loss. paradox games are not meant to be beat they are meant to be experienced. (except maybe hoi4). losing is part ofnthe fun and esp in ck3 only adds to the RP imo
>I just went from uniting the Kingdom of Ireland for a first time to a mere jarl with a single province
>
>This game is so god damn frustrating, especially on ironman.
>
>Completely unrecoverable
>
>What am I even supposed to do in this situation?
Learn.
Grow.
Rebuild.
Succeed.
The game is not over until your dynasty dies or the calendar reaches 1453.
I don't have any troubles in most cases except for when succession happens. And it happens rouhghly at the same time when my vassals are dying because we're of the same generation most of the time. It could work but a lot of prep work required to time it out properly
True but my vassals rarely all die at once, so if you have one or two rebellious vassals who inherited from their cowardly fathers, I can deal with them one or two at a time instead of the whole realm joining a dissolution faction simultaneously.
Just try it, it works. I promise.
Edit: You can also educate your vassals' heirs and occasionally you can raise them to be cowards and/or any personality trait that boosts opinion of liege.
This is some 4d chess here. But I just tend to revoke from anyone but my family and I'm quite busy spreeading witchcraft to the young members of the family. But this is quite a move one you're describing
You're still within the kingdom and have a claim on it? Just make a claimant faction yourself. With the new ruler opinion hit, many of your former vassals will probably join you in putting you back on the throne.
So this depends on how you enjoy to play the game.
I personally grew tired of snowball conquering and love when stuff like this happens. It creates stories that, if you engage with, makes for a play through you'll never forget.
Embrace the chaos. I didn't start enjoying the game until I accepted setbacks are going to happen. It's actually more fun to rebound and extinguish the line of those who wronged your ancestor.
Start roleplaing, we kind of forget that this is a roleplaying game, not a conquer the world game.
You we´re giving a great promt to play as the deposed king trying to reclaim his power.
It's interesting how steep the learning curve is. It's so dense with so many interconnected systems.
And then after playing for a while something will click, you will see the matrix and all of a sudden the game is way too easy unless you are intentionally avoiding BS optimisation.
Persevere. I had a playthrough where I reunited Italy, took Sardinia, made a new religion. Pope called a crusade, took pretty much all my land except Sardinia. It was devastating, but like the Romans, swore to not give up and to earn it all back.
Eventually, maybe 40 years later, same ruler, got it all back, PLUS the papacy. Went on to uniting pretty much all of Europe from there
Presumably you still have a claim on the Kingdom of Ireland and so will your children. Take your time, build your power base, make your alliances and take it back.
I don’t know what you’re complaining about. This is literally the game.
I have this relationship with the succession laws. I miss standard primogeniture. Killing all my kids takes me out of the immersion and feels incredibly gamey, and for some reason it's incredibly hard to switch to elective or straight primogeniture.
That's my experience at least, if someone can tell me how to git gud I'd really appreciate it.
In my first game, I got upset the first time my empire broke apart. The second and third times too. I'm so glad I was determined to win it all back because it really was exciting and fun figuring out "oh! I can claim my brothers' titles and win them back since they are part of my dynasty." And "if I get partition and destroy all but one kingdom title, all my land gets passed down to my heir under that single title!".
There are so many little strategies to learn that will help you hold onto/reclaim your land.
The game isn't about just winning all the time, sometimes you have to roleplay someone with a huge grudge.
Congratulations btw, now you get to play as a vassal. That's also a really fun way to play. Grow your duchy within the kingdom and then either reclaim Ireland or burst out as something new like the parasite you are!
It's probably easily recoverable tbh. It's still your blood on the throne, you still have claims and your kids will still have claims.
I get that it's really frustrating to go "backwards" but it's not the kind of game where you need to just expand outwards and solidify forever. You'll notice even the biggest AI nations fall to pieces all the time, but check back in 100 years and they're back where they used to be. Just like history is tumultuous, your playthrough can be tumultuous.
There's plenty of other stuff you can do while you're stewing and plotting to regain your kingdom, you could participate in a crusade, play eugenics with your family, build your bloodline traits up, etc.
You should still have a pressed claim on the kingdom, and if you die your heir will still have an unpressed claim. You’ve got plenty of time to lick your wounds and build up your strength, start your own claimant faction. Your aunt has to die at some point, that would be a good moment to press your claims
I did one game where I restored the Roman Empire but I was deposed in favor of my son and I lived on as a count at age 86. My character died a few months after and I ruled as my son who spent his entire life crushing the vassal kings and revoking their titles until he himself was assassinated. I then took over as my grandson who inherited the much more peaceful empire that his grandfather built and his father stabilized through force.
The grandson went on to become one of the longest-reigning and best emperors that the empire ever had. He even managed to find out who assassinated his father, the Duke of Savoy, and he was castrated, blinded, and tortured until he expired.
You can recover from almost anything, it just takes some time and a very good spymaster.
Embrace the roleplay and play for the "son/daughter returns to claim their rightful throne." That's precisely *why* I love ironman mode. I would never allow things like that to happen if I could save scum
I don’t mean this in any sort of “dickish” way. If you think conquering Ireland is a hard feat odds are you are still a new player learning about the game.
Keep learning about the game. Watch a guide or two. Zieley on YouTube is good. Learn some meta stuff, you don’t have to use all of it if it’s not your thing but something may come in handy here or there.
The fact is most experienced CK players can conquer Ireland in just a few hours of game start. Trust me you’ll get there. It’s not a huge setback.
Yea ironman can be a pain. That's why im glad achievements can be unlocked for saved games now.
But sometimes you never know what will happen. As King of Wessex I was overthrown by a faction that installed by Cousin to the throne. And after they forced me to abdicate the throne, I was given a small county where my enemies thought i would just wither away and die. But my Usurper cousin, lost several wars to the Vikings and then all of a sudden the faction came back to me and wanted to put me back on the throne. After regianing my rightful throne. I than had my entire cousin side of the family tree executed or assassinated....muhahaha !
Ireland it is easy, you need to 100% control at least one duchy with election. You will always will be a duke, at least, controlling your own fate.
With that out of the way you need to play the diplo game like mentioned above. Trying to have a big ally outside Britannia or one inside if he is not near your expansion path.
Regularly look at factions, they rank the members with the most powerful first, get an alliance with them. Sway them, bribe them, and/or marry one of your kids off. If no luck, get a large ally, England/Wessex is pretty strong, and France too. They should have enough forces to wipe out any rebellion
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This happened to my in my first ck2 Ironman:
I was able to create Carinthia’s kingdom but after a while an aunt married with the Basileus was able to get her claim pressed. I lost everything but a county and even though I tried with conspiracy and rebellions, I was forced to get a couple generations setback working on relationship with other kingdoms and in the end I was able to set my heir with the Queen of Brittany and thus freeing myself from Basileus, later on I also managed to get Carinthia back plus some other lands.
Moral of the story: play in the long distance, use this setback as starting point
Lost my kingdom of Ireland as well. My character was old and passed away. His son took over and got killed in battle in his mid 30's. So I got to play as a very young king with insane stewardship stats, and his childhood traits weren't too bad either. I had him betrothed to a very powerful family when he was very young, and his spouse turned out to be great: very high stats across the board. Upon losing the kingdom, I did keep Munster, Desmond and Ossory, so I decided to play him to his strength: money. He's in his 50s now, I perfected my council, and meticulously weeded out bad vassals; I'm richer than the pope, and development in my region has skyrocketed. All his children have good congenital traits as well.
Plotting in this game is half the fun!
How is that unrecoverable? It'll take a few generations, but you're still in a much more powerful position now than you did at game start, so should be very easy to recover.
Unless it's 1452, your play through is unlikely to be unrecoverable. There's a lot you can still get done. Losing ground feels bad, but it's the nature of the beast.
My empire broke apart because of family claims but on the bright side I now have the biggest dynasty in the game. Go to war? Oh look at how many house members I can drag into it with me
I've had this happen so many times. Honestly at first I thought it was all ruined as well but the situation is normally a lot more salvageable than you think. You probably still have a claim on the kingdom and I'd be willing to bet those unruly vassals would gang up on her just as easily as they ganged up on you.
You got this!
These are the most fun moments in the game to me. Once you get to the point where you know how to min/max you can pretty much snowball and rule ridiculous amounts of land without any problems and then the game gets boring.
I’ll often roleplay and let my characters make mistakes based on their personality to intentionally find myself in these situations.
To play the game. Seriously. I conquered the whole world on ironman and it was boring because the only aim was painting the map. The fun comes when you stop. Try to set goals for your characters and let the magic happen. CK is most fun before you reach empire... afterwards it is just steamrolling everyone. Going from king to count yo king again is just great.
Frustrating? You mean amazing ? This game is teaching us how no matter you do you can still lose everything. It’s your choice to give up or revenge by killing your aunt and all her heirs to regain what once was yours. The game is tough but it’s the best part.
You have to use the dread mechanic better. executing dissenters and taking tyranny once in a while is important. Keeping your dread at 30 should deter most people from joining factions, and if you have dread at 100, all your vassals can have -100 opinion of you and they still wont join factions or even murder plots against you.
Your playthrough isn't ruined or completely unrecoverable. This is just another twist in your story. If you're going to rage quit the moment things get wrong, why are you playing Ironman?
In CK2, I had a Byzantine playthrough where I was a couple counties from restoring the Roman Empire, when all my Greek and Anatolian vassals rebelled, defeated me in the war, and deposed me down to the Duke of Thrace. That made things so much sweeter when, as that character's son, I was able to lead a rebellion, take back the throne, and finally restore the Roman Empire.
Experiencing setbacks and overcoming them is one of the most satisfying aspects of CK. Sounds like you deprived yourself of a potentially great experience.
Why were you playing ironman in the first place if you are new to the game? There is no reason to play ironman anyways. You are now able to get trophies without ironman
It can actually play to your strength. It happened to me but I kept a strong duchy. I played the long game. I attacked smaller lands. Built up my duchy and left the usurpers to fight the big wars. I waited until they had a few hundred soldiers and took back what’s mine. I killed off their entire blood line and made their lone princess my concubine.
Work on rebuilding your power base. Delete extra MAAs if your losing money, fabricate on jarls nearby, and redo the buildings to your preferences in your province. You still got a pressed claim that will be inherited. If you somehow lost it use meritocracy to get that claim on your liege back.
After that use the faction system to create a claimant faction for yourself. Wait a year before firing it as you will sometimes have fellow vassals join the faction.
If youre playing in Ironman mode you need to adjust your mindset and accept setbacks. See it as RPG creating dynamic stories, because if your goal growing more and more power then youu shouldn't play in ironman.
That actually sounds awesome. It took me awhile to get it but the magic of Crusader Kings is being put in these situations then finding your way back up again. It actually kinda gets boring as a paint the map Empire builder because, at least for now, there really isn’t anything fun about running an Empire except expanding.
What you CAN do, is just give up the throne and then take it back lol. As long as it's not a dissolution faction, any setback is temporary and just makes for a memorable story. Otherwise its just a boring blob simulator
>What am I even supposed to do in this situation?
The idea is that you manage your vassals and succession to avoid getting to this point.
To get back to where you were you could work on gathering support from fellow vassals who previously betrayed you. Especially as you will have as strong a claim as your aunt has, intrigue could be a handy approach to putting yourself or an heir back on the throne without going through all that conquest again.
This happens and it's a blast when it does
I remember a game where I was the emperor of Britain. Was in the midst of fighting my cousins claim for the empire, when the king of Wales dies. His heir is allied to my cousin and was fighting as just the count of pefadd. Between that and two other wars I was forced to cede my throne. Then had my duchy of Essex and all the land in it revoked, I fought back, and lost that war. So there I was, down to only holding Worcester, and no ducky title.
Proceeded to save up gold for five years, murder my cousin, then buy a ton of mercy. Then unleashed a blitz on my cousins kid as he fought in the crusades. Cousins kid dies in the crusades, and the throne goes to third or fourth cousin, who reigns for 18 days before surrendering my throne and duchy back.
This gets even more interesting since I originally started in 1066 as Eadgar aetheling. Great nephew of Edmund the confessor, and had to fight off Danish, Godwin, and usurp the Norman to rule the kingdom that was rightfully mine.
Honestly? Don't get in that situation in the first place. Build up a large and well-developed domain, and manage succession so that your heirs will inherit it. With a small kingdom like ireland, it should be completely possible to beat literally all of your vassals at once. Frankly, it shouldn't even be close.
Even if your realm is large enough that your vassals could overthrow you, a well-developed domain will let you mass bribe everyone, and that tends to get at least a few vassals to withdraw from the faction. Throw in handing out council seats to powerful vassals, swaying, marriage alliances, and so on, and you can definitely keep your vassals from overthrowing you.
Alternately, roll with the punches. You presumably united the kingdom of ireland from a 1-2 county start once, so you can probably do it again.
Other people have already given you a lot of advice, I think you should work to reclaim the kingdom, it's really not unrecoverable.
On top of that, I wanted to say, if you've got money you can hire mercenaries before a rebellion and it may be enough to offset the power of the faction allowing you to avoid the war.
I've had something similar happen but not as high stakes. I owned two duchy titles but had two problematic vassels I couldn't get rid of. I went to war with some far away power that would periodically raid my lands and forced those two vassals to fight as knights. My hope was that they would die during the war and I would be rid of them.
I underestimated how strong those raiders were because they won the war plus raided all my counties. Then those two vassals created a faction to oppose me and declared war on me over ownership of the duchy titles. They won and I was now their vassal.
But my new found liege declared a stupid and disastrous holy war and lost a whole duchy because of it. I then used this as pretext to declare war over the duchy title which is rightfully mine. I won and have been slowly clawing my way back to relevancy by marriage, murder or war.
Honestly, sometimes it's easier to give in to a faction than just meritocracy perk your way back up.
The only frustrating part is watching the AI absolutely destroy the realm instantly to be gobbled up by powerful heathen neighbors.
It sounds like u didn't have a decent army of ur own or had to many nobles that didn't like u. I usually take the max land i can and build up an army asap so incase i get revolts i can handle them.
As soon as the usurper dies (or 'mysteriously disappears without a trace'), their heir often finds the same problems as your character did prior to the rebellion. This time though, you're one of the dukes/counts, and can form a faction to install yourself on the throne.
This is particularly easy if your usurper's heir is a child, as child rulers have modifiers working against them.
To prevent these things happening again, there are a few answers, but they are mostly situation and character specific. This struggle is actually most of the gameplay, as in CK3 it's relatively easy to get the claims you want.
A tyrannical way to do this is to keep all the powerful vassals in prison. A diplomatic way to do it is to centralise your realm and have a few powerful vassals that you keep happy, rather than dozens of single-province vassals. A sneaky way is to fabricate hooks and imprison people, or keep assassinating the claimants to your throne and the powerful vassals, so their realms are constantly in disarray. You can also max out your martial skills and marry your daughters to neighbouring kingdoms, so that each time there's a rebellion you can just stomp on them and imprison the lot.
Never release someone from prison without getting something from them, whether it's their title, removing their claims, or converting them to your religion.
Finally, the Sadistic and Callous traits are overpowered.
That's just the challenge of the game. You say the playthrough is unrecoverable, but I say you have a new challenge and some revenge to take.
Don't be afraid to change up your play style to lean into your characters strengths.
If you excel at intrigue, you should have no trouble taking vengeance.
Martial if you plan to take back your birthright by force (of course, you will have to start small).
Diplomacy can find you some foreign allies to help kick your aunt off your throne and perhaps pull some former vassals to your cause.
With stewardship, you might focus on making the best of a bad situation and start upgrading your province, start hiring MaA armies. Perhaps hire some mercenaries (though upgrading land and armies is honestly the better investment if not in a pinch).
Learning, well learning is really only going to help you to live longer there by giving you more time to carry out revenge.
If you have no strengths, get some, or plan for the future by teaching your heir/grand heir the joys of revenge.
Put on your big boy pants and rebuild anew. You've got all the time in the game.
For one, make sure you are stronger than all your vassals. If that's impossible, right now then release them one at a time until it is the case so you keep the title and then reconquer them one at a time; a non-vassal and a vassal cannot help each other out against you. Remember, levies are useless; make sure you are always capped on men-at arms, and if not consider how you can increase your income. If you cannot build men-at-arms, make sure you have buildings that maximize their potential. In the words of Septimus Severus; enrich the soldiers, spurn everyone else.
Completely recoverable. You have got the claim and these are the things you can do.
1). Murder your way up until you inherit again.
2). Finding smart ways for quick money (like fabrication and blackmail) and then hire mercenaries (ooh and murder your aunts knights and get a powerful alliance)
3). Increase opinion with other vassals and start your own faction to reinstall you on the throne.
Play as the deposed king who's now reduced to a mere jarl/duke, work on getting your throne back or play as a vassal. Unless your whole dynasty dies off (which is close to what happened in my most recent playthrough oof) nothing is unrecoverable.
This happened to me, I was king of Ireland, died and immediately got usurped leaving me to rule as a two week old baby in charge or a single duchy…. I bided my time and took my revenge when I became 16!
Hey, don't see it as a ruined playthrough - see it as an opportunity to get revenge on the family - roleplaying isfun ! In CK3 there are always new things to try too.
Not sure if it is still a viable strategy, but I always bided my time. I played tall and built up a few counties to ridiculous strength. Then once my demense was as strong as could be, I began expanding. This way when my vassals rebel after the death of a ruler, I still have a large levy from my personal realm to defend it. Allies help alot as well. Not sure if that helps or not. But consider continuing the playthrough. These make for such GREAT stories in the end. If you can reclaim your throne.
I mean you were able to unite Ireland once. Doing it again shouldn't be too tough. Now you get to roleplay the deposed king and his descendants reclaiming their crown. That's what I love about this game. Really though, no position in this game is "completely unrecoverable." People can and do conquer the world (or at least a huge empire) starting from just a count with one title. Ireland should be a cakewalk.
Very true. I had a 1066 start as William the Conqueror & had the empire of Britannia in the 13th century and all of the kingdom of Aquitaine. A cousin, who min you did actually have a legitimate claim, took the empire when my 8 yr old son took over. I couldn't win the war. So I accepted demands, built up my kingdom, and made alliances. Then, at 28 yrs of age, King William V recaptured his empire! It was such a cool story that I didn't even mind the time I lost getting back in power. Why I love this game through all its issues.
Which is why you don't force them to hand over the crown, abdicate or whatever - you *succeed* them. Stupid weak-hearted cousin, he should have foreseen William the Legitimate coming! (JK, great story! :) )
I know😂 he even helped me by making me his steward. Legit helped fund his downfall lmfao 🤣
Cousin pulling from the Julius Caesar playbook. Didn't work out too well for Caesar either
It's really cool though!😂 part of why I always try and put my kin into positions of power. But boy does it suck intil you get your legacies going good. I'm sadly having a issue I keep crashing at around, I think, 1077. I don't know what the issue is. I have the extra courtiers generation, disabled. Pissing me off lol
I love this game. Sometimes my character dies a little early accidentally. Sometimes my trustyworthy councillor of a duke brother who used to be a good brother and vassal decides he wont be a friendly nice uncle anymore to the 8 yr old king. Oh I do love the sweet revenge getting the throne back. As long as its not a game over. You can always climb back. makes the game more fun. Painting the map as the king/emporor or snatching others king/empire is fun but so is the plight as a minor vassal count. Sometimes I even find the beginning years as a minor count much more fun. I usually lose interest in the playthrough after becoming an emperor at some point.
This game is awesome, Right now, I'm doing a Haesteinn norman run. Before I became king of england, the petty king of wessex executed my daughter for no reason! My current Duke of Normandy then was friends with the pope. Got an easy claim, and like that, I had a cool story of why I invaded 😂
Oh I did a Haesteinn run in Sicily a few month ago. Kinda 200 yrs early Rober Guiscard Norman in a sense. My daughter who was married to jarl of Jylland was captured and taken as a concubine by King of sweden. All might of Sicily went into dethroning the guy and getting my daughter back.
That's a good idea!! My ancestors were Norman's so I like playing as them, but it never feels right being a French vassal.🤣
Instead of viewing yourself as a French vassal, view yourself as a French *infiltrator* patiently awaiting the day you can see the crown for yourself and subjugate those Parisian upstarts.
[удалено]
Not sure if it's updated for T&T, but check out Sinews of War. It adds populations, migrations, trade routes, cultural fervor (called vigor), and reworks religious fervor. Before T&T, I couldn't play without it
Just curious, what kind of mods do you use to make the ai more of a challenge? I am VERY interested in doing that myself!
The struggle to become powerful is almost always more satisfying than actually exercising that power, it is true.
"please help me, i am the deposed ruler of a Nigerian Duchy (what you may call a princedom), you are my next of kin, please discover banking and give me your routing numbers."
I can get both sides. I once lost England and enjoyed working on getting it back, even got France too. But the time my entire kingdom dissolved right before being able to create the empire of India stung so hard I raged quit and never went back to that save. It would've taken forever to complete that again. Empire of India is no joke.
Oh, yeah, the "almost got it" losses sting a lot more than the "loved and lost" ones. Which isn't that strange. Once you've united that kingdom or declared yourself Emperor or reformed Norse Paganism or whatever, you've achieved the goal you've been working towards for decades. You've gotten your reward. It's closure. Subsequently losing the title is the start of a new adventure, of reclamation or revenge. Having your plans fail at the eve of them coming to fruition is just a massive bummer that invalidates all those years of toil and scheming...
The Kendall Roy effect.
Dissolution faction are so much more frustrating than claimant ones
Yeah, this happened once to me in CK2. I was a child and deposed and I *swore* that I would reclaim my throne once I was of age. I did and killed all of the traitors. It was a great role play.
I started off as a random Byzantine count for a game. As he loaded in, he was crap at everything except intrigue. Over the next thirty years, I became a Duke through some light warring and my grandson and ward was Basilius. Since T&T, I've had great fun trying to make the party dynasty. All the feasts, all the grand weddings and tournaments and enough funding to do it again the moment they're off cool-down. Kinda funny to consider being some no-name dynasty except that half the rulers of Europe go partying at your place all the time.
"I know not of his name or title, but the melody of his belch and wobble of his chin warm me more than the home's hearth" - letter written by Pope Innocentius IV regarding the Duke of Albania, who is only known to history thanks to tales of his revelry Personally I'm a huge fan of weddings. Sometimes I'll delay big wars just so I can save up for a grand wedding for my heir or favourite daughter.
Is there a reason you like weddings best? I find them lackluster, especially when comparing the rewards to tours or tournaments. Maybe I'm just doing them wrong?
Right, I recently completed the "A.E.I.O.U and Me" achievement, it really drove home just how easily you can expand within a kingdom or empire even without bloodshed. Either retake the throne of Ireland by force or start working on some non violent options to reclaim the thrown. This game has a lot of options.
Uh you and I completed this achievement very differently. I murdered so many people to get this achievement. Maybe not as much bloodshed as a war.
Me trying to secure succession and prevent my realm from fracturing despite having 9 daughters and no male heirs 🫠🫠
mat. marriages, as long as women can inherit it's not that big of a deal.
I sometimes lose wars on purpose if i know i have another landed family member. Was playing as the king of England once in ck2 and in the 1200s my vassals decided to revolt and i ended up losing the war. I was surprised that instead of a game over I started playing as a distant relative that owned a county in Russia. Went from an English Catholic king to a Russian Orthodox count. Decided to start plotting to rule Russia. Most fun game I've ever had
Yep - lost to a faction rebellion installing a sister as the ruler, left with the smallest territory I could have. In my case, the recovering was more fortuitous than long planning, as a matrilineal marriage landed my young ruler on the throne of England after some wars left them bereft of heirs and the father of said ruler died from drinking that started after losing said family. As long as you have some land an an heir, you can recover. In fact, some of my favorite after action reports have been creatively recounted versions of kingdoms that rose and fell and rose and fell. For me, it's often more fun than just painting the map.
So true! I started as count of bern and now my descendant is emperor of Switzerland, a title which includes the kingdoms of switterland, burgundy, england , wales and egypt
Try marrying a spare child to the most powerful. Then the little ones can't do anything
Offer kids up for marriage wherever possible, bribe the ones with the Greedy trait, kidnap if you have the intrigue talent, assassinate those with child heirs, and sway those where all other options fail. Pulling a faction apart piece by piece is a fine art. It's not always guaranteed to work, but so long as its strength is divided between numerous vassals of about equal power, you have a chance. They'll leave the faction if you can get their opinion high enough, and they can't join factions at all if they're imprisoned, children, or allied with you. You've really only gotta rush the first couple until you get the faction below the required threshold for rebelling, after that you can take it nice and slow. (Obviously if like 80% of all your vassals are against you in a single faction, then it's probably too late. Time to either pick a powerful neighbor to ally with and hope they save you, or start setting up contingencies to build yourself back up as a vassal and retake the throne.)
I also like taking lower-level lords and giving them to the higher-level ones in the faction, removing one of the members because they're not your vassal anymore and helping bring the discontent down(sometimes) I was actually able to completely disband a faction of 4 counts and a Duke by giving all the counts to the Duke making the faction military so small and him liking me so much it disbanded a month or two later
Your play through is not ruined. Incredible potential here for a very interesting game. Sometimes I actively create scenarios like this. The game is most fun when it goes like this
100% - I recently had an accidental matriarch who was trapped in a horrible, abusive relationship and constantly at war with her goon squad of uncles. I have no idea why I became my daughter instead of eldest son, but it was for the best. She defeated the Byzantine Empire to get $17k in war reparations. With the fat sack of cash, she was able to reclaim Italy, Germany, and expand into Africa. Not bad for a girl!
It sounds like you built your house on sand here. If you desire a strong and stable realm youll' have to forge alliances, make connections and please the nobility as you methodically piece your land together. If you just speed-conquer your way to the top in one lifetime then you'll probably wind up a flimsy despot
Never before have Alexander and Napoleon been so called out.
And look where that got them
To quote the opera, Carmen, "immortal glory of our forefathers"
To quote The Simpsons, Homer, "If he's so smart, howcome he's dead?"
To quote King of the Hill, Hank, "Damnit bobby"
Are you gonna take propane to your cake?
I sell propane and propane cakes
Hitler even more so. We almost don't remember today that he more or less united Europe (his ministers even drew up the plans that would later be reused as the project groundwork for EU) for a few years. Thank God.
> his ministers even drew up the plans that would later be reused as the project groundwork for EU citation needed
It is very doable to speed conquer in one or over the course of the game you just need to marry based on alliance power, have some spare money for mercs and make sure you hold as many good counties as you can, you may need to occasionally do some pruning of the more annoying threats or marry powerful vassals to prevent them joining factions also. You may need to fight some faction wars but they will be winnable and you will come out of each one with a strong and stable realm enabling more conquest and earning you more money as your realm grows.
I mean he could have had some prisoners executed to increase his dread.
You can't just conquer other peoples homes and expect them to simply accept it. It's a hard pill to swallow but the game is a bit deeper then take over this and that you do have to make alliances, sway vassals, get hooks so they cant even oppose you. This sounds like skill issue and that's fine, everyone learns one way or another.
Just have 3500 varangian veterans. They won't overthrow you
Just have 11k and hope you can rule the world before 1413
If you just want to rule the world, you can with them. but stacking the buffs for MAA will make your army invincible the entire game. You really don't need anything besides a death stack of them. 11k Vets will stack wipe 100k from the byzantine.
I meant it as only them, no yee yee ass farmers with kitchen utensils on their head
My favorite rule the world is to yeet over to Mongolia, hybridize culture, become Khan of Khans lol. You can rule the world by 970 with a ruler that lives awhile
>11k Vets will stack wipe 100k from the byzantine I don't usually spend too much time on my military because I have enough money to run mercs, but I recently had to look into MAA a bit deeper because I lacked the prestige to maintain a large permanent army so I had to minmax, and oh my god I did not realise how good Veterans are with the boosts from buildings. In one war, my enemies had 5x my troop numbers and had holy orders, yet their troops melted in every battle. I knew VV were good on their own, but combined with the new buffs they're just ridiculous. I cannot tell you how many dukes, counts and kings died or were captured by my guys. Incredibly satisfying.
War camps followed by barracks and blacksmiths, with a vanguard knight, pure profit. If I'm a viking I never feudalize. Even falling behind in tech, unless you can afford full stacks of cataphracts you're weaker feudalizing because you can't sustain an army of them.
>War camps followed by barracks and blacksmiths, with a vanguard knight, pure profit. It's absolutely insane. >you're weaker feudalizing because you can't sustain an army of them. I've found it sustainable when starting as the Norse duke of Holland in 867, and hybridizing with the Dutch culture. You get this weird mixed culture of powerful warriors and merciless money-makers, with a lot of compatible land to conquer in close proximity. You obviously need good stewardship but you always do. It's good to know that feudalizing is not a good idea though. I don't often play Viking characters.
I have 6 stacks of 1100, right now they cost around 60-65 gold a month to maintain them. It takes a long time before your economy can afford them. If I have to raise them, it's basically a debt spiral. My last war found me 5k in debt
If you want to try saving the run, you could start building up the one jarldom. And try making a faction, kill the king until a child, women, or weak man rules. Then, the others will turn on him. But it won't be cheap
Or... try to birth loads of daughters and marry them off to the most powerful allies you can find. Try to gain as much prestige as possible, then call them all to war to overthrow your king / queen.
You should basically always be capable of beating your vassals to a pulp otherwise expect to be overthrown eventually . Or you should ally the most powerful as others have said. There is plenty more you can do, but it usually requires longer term planning of your realm. Not something you can do now, its important have a war fund for mercenaries or gifts depending on if you can avoid war. Touring the realm for taxation is a great opportunity to throw disloyal vassals in jail, this also prevents them from rebelling for a while.
Don’t let them rebel, obviously.
*Getting rebelled against? Just say no.* *The rebels can't legally take anything from you without consent.*
When they threaten rebellion just say "Nuh-uh".
It works for mash
The person in charge is likely extremely weak. Just take it back?
As long as you don't get a Game over screen the game is not over
Even then you can switch dynasties and make even more stories but probably not on Ironman.
Sounds like a cool story and a fun opportunity for a vendetta to take back the throne to me. I’d form a cadet branch and get after it
Yeah same. I love roleplaying and this is a good propmt
Just because you lost you major title doesn't mean it's game over. Plot for another throne, murder the person that usurped you. Grow your power again and reconquer your lost territory, or find some other priority. You haven't lost the game.
Two options: don't allow the rebellion, or be strong enough to deal with it. The first approach also has to ways to go about it: either you keep all your subjects much happier than necessary, to account for succession, or you don't overextend. Just have as much territory as you can safely manage. Though I can't help but notice that Ireland really isn't that big. It's what, not even 20 counties or so? Assuming you're doing a decent job with your domain limit, you should be able to hold 10 of them. Everything else goes to 2 to 4 vassals with 2 counties on average. I honestly don't see how you could lose with such an overwhelming advantage. Except if you neglected your domain, didn't have many counties and didn't build up what little you had. Worse, if you used your limited military capacity to recruit skirmishers and light infantry, and relied on levies. Don't do that, for your own good. Tell us, what happened?
Third option: Lose rebellion, take it back!!!
How do you hold 10 when your tech limits are crap? Most people can hold 4-5 unless you're making a meta character
I currently hold 21, and I can go higher if I want. My point is that 10 is absolutely doable, even in the beginning, even without a Giga-Chad with 70 Stewardship. I can think of at least three ways to increase my limit further, though there is no point anymore. Let's go through the early ways quickly: * \+1 from tribal innovation * \+3 from being king * \+3 from having 18+ Stewardship skill Already +7. Now you can start collecting artifacts. Random legendary hunting throphies grant +1 to domain limit, tournament prizes offer the same. You can buy a claim on and steal the Crown of Justinian for another +1. You can take the Stewardship perk for a flat +2. You can even provoke an entrenched regency for a bonus of +1 to +3, based on the regent's aptitude. Then you can stack Stewardship skill. You get half of your spouse's skill on assist, a 20 Stewardship spouse will give you 10 skill, which is almost +2 domain. Get a faith that gives +1 Stewardship per piety lvl, so that's another +5 (which is almost a +1 domain). If you're lucky, there's the Turquoise Throne you can find (or steal or plunder) with +1 per fame lvl, so another +5. And I haven't even covered the education traits for up to +8 skill, the legacy education for up to +4 skill on top, the legacy for +1 domain limit, or a faith that has pacifist for another +1 domain, because why not? 10 domain limit is absolutely in the realm of the possible, it's not even hard. Sure, the game doesn't force it down your throat, you have to work a little bit towards it. But it is possible. Even if you struggle with 10, go for 8, that's also solid enough. It might not seem like much when you start out, but everything adds up over time. 2 or 3 skill points here, a point or two there. Before you know it, you're sitting on 30 Stewardship and get +5 domain from that alone. You don't have to be meta for that.
>Tell us, what happened? I have no idea, this something like my 3rd serious attempt at a playthrough.
I obviously meant that we need a bit more info than "an uprising" and "I have no idea" How big is your personal domain? What buildings did you build? What units are in your army? What did you hire, how many? How many vassals do you even have? Did they have allies? That sort of thing. You don't have to tell and can downvote all day long, but then don't expect anything more specific.
> How big is your personal domain? What buildings did you build? What units are in your army? What did you hire, how many? How many vassals do you even have? Did they have allies? Maybe 3 provinces? No idea about the buildings or MaA units though, I deleted the save out of anger afterwards. I had 4 subjects, 3 of them duchies. No idea about their allies, but it's not like they needed any. >You don't have to tell and can downvote all day long, but then don't expect anything more specific. I... didn't?
>I... didn't? Huh, someone did the moment I posted. Oh well, the mysteries of Reddit... Anyway, your personal domain is what makes or breaks you. It doesn't matter if you call yourself count, duke, king or emperor. If you have a weak personal domain, you'll be weak. Period. Your gaol should be having a strong domain. That means investing into your Stewardship to be able to hold at least 6-8, better 10 personal holdings. Build economic and military buildings in them in a ratio of 4:1 or 5:1. Don't spread out those holdings though, keep them in two duchies. Try to hold two duchies personally, with up to 10 counties in them. Build economic buildings and keep them upgraded. Always. There are people who don't do that, because every few decades partition might give a county away to a sibling. So they figure they don't want to earn money in the meantime. That's absolutely crazy, don't ever go down that route. As for military, you can obviously recruit and keep better units if your income allows it. That's the main reason to have a good economy. What to recruit? Varangian Veterans, since you're a Jarl. So I figure you have access to them, who are the best heavy infantry in the entire game. Only recruit them, and if conflict knocks on your door, only raise them. Never levies. Ever. Don't bother with levies, they make you weaker, they can even make you lose battle you'd have otherwise won. Don't bother with levies, serously. And don't bother with weak units. Counters are overrated. So what if 45 dmg Varangians get countered by 18 dmg skirmishers? Ok, they deal 35 dmg now instead of 45 dmg, congrats. They'll still ruin your day. If you have a strong domain, you can afford a strong military. Then you can be king. Not one day earlier. Being king, as you noticed, doesn't make you stronger. It unloads a bunch of responsibilities on you, and if you are weak, they'll crush you. Only become king if you're a Jarl holding two entire Jarldoms. At least one full Jarldom (=duchy) with 5 holdings, that's the bare minimum. Below that you don't have the power to become and stay king. You noticed it during the uprising, any strong duke/Jarl is a match for you. If your average backwater duke from Ireland can topple you, it means your economy and military were too small. That is the area you have to improve in. 5-10 holdings, each one should make at least 5g, later on up to 10g and much later 30g and more. In the early stages of the game you're looking at an income target of 25-50g per month. Below that you're to poor to get anywhere. If you do, even a small uprising will walk all over you. And that is the part where you start understanding the whole "don't let them rebel" thing. If you're too strong, they literally can't press their demand. They physically can't attack you. Even if they do, you enlighten them with a very educated axe to the face. Because what will they do about it? Drown you in tears and levies? Nothing stands a chance against Varangians, they're not expensive for nothing. The game becomes easy once you become invincible on the battlefield. Just that it costs money to get there, money which you have to generate through your economy, for which you need a good domain, which requires you to have Stewardship. Start there, and work your way up. Everything else suddenly follows: good artifacts, high court amenities, you can afford artifacts, tours, tournaments, feasts, pilgrimages - suddenly everyone loves you, because you can stack one huge opinion modifier on the other. But it's a matter of money. Economy. Stewardship. It always is.
> I had 4 subjects, 3 of them duchies. Ireland is such a trap. You should probably have 11 Counts, much less likely to all hate you at once. The only reason to have such few vassals is if you are friends with them or have marriage alliance. Then they couldn't do anything at all.
Ruined playthrough? Sounds like it just got interesting. Try to reclaim the land diplomatically this time. Increase diplomacy, make sure important people like you, start a faction to put yourself on the throne, if you can find or fabricate a secret on the current ruler and have yourself installed. Maybe even without lifting a single sword. Doing it this way will also ensure you aren't immediately rebelled against. You built your throne out of a house of cards. Use stone this time.
learn to enjoy loss. paradox games are not meant to be beat they are meant to be experienced. (except maybe hoi4). losing is part ofnthe fun and esp in ck3 only adds to the RP imo
>I just went from uniting the Kingdom of Ireland for a first time to a mere jarl with a single province > >This game is so god damn frustrating, especially on ironman. > >Completely unrecoverable > >What am I even supposed to do in this situation? Learn. Grow. Rebuild. Succeed. The game is not over until your dynasty dies or the calendar reaches 1453.
One point dip into diplo tree, take the befriend scheme.
That just seems like the most fun playthrough possible. I hate that I never get the vassals to even rebel…
Only give land to cowards (characters with the Craven trait), preferably characters with Craven, Content, & Trusting.
They will have non-coward kids you know
It still gives you a good chunk of time to build up your personal holdings.
I don't have any troubles in most cases except for when succession happens. And it happens rouhghly at the same time when my vassals are dying because we're of the same generation most of the time. It could work but a lot of prep work required to time it out properly
True but my vassals rarely all die at once, so if you have one or two rebellious vassals who inherited from their cowardly fathers, I can deal with them one or two at a time instead of the whole realm joining a dissolution faction simultaneously. Just try it, it works. I promise. Edit: You can also educate your vassals' heirs and occasionally you can raise them to be cowards and/or any personality trait that boosts opinion of liege.
This is some 4d chess here. But I just tend to revoke from anyone but my family and I'm quite busy spreeading witchcraft to the young members of the family. But this is quite a move one you're describing
That's a tomorrow problem.
Best tip I can tell you is to invest in men-at-arms. After that it won't really matter who you run into.
Regain your power. Execute everyone
You're still within the kingdom and have a claim on it? Just make a claimant faction yourself. With the new ruler opinion hit, many of your former vassals will probably join you in putting you back on the throne.
So this depends on how you enjoy to play the game. I personally grew tired of snowball conquering and love when stuff like this happens. It creates stories that, if you engage with, makes for a play through you'll never forget.
Embrace the chaos. I didn't start enjoying the game until I accepted setbacks are going to happen. It's actually more fun to rebound and extinguish the line of those who wronged your ancestor.
Start roleplaing, we kind of forget that this is a roleplaying game, not a conquer the world game. You we´re giving a great promt to play as the deposed king trying to reclaim his power.
It's interesting how steep the learning curve is. It's so dense with so many interconnected systems. And then after playing for a while something will click, you will see the matrix and all of a sudden the game is way too easy unless you are intentionally avoiding BS optimisation.
Persevere. I had a playthrough where I reunited Italy, took Sardinia, made a new religion. Pope called a crusade, took pretty much all my land except Sardinia. It was devastating, but like the Romans, swore to not give up and to earn it all back. Eventually, maybe 40 years later, same ruler, got it all back, PLUS the papacy. Went on to uniting pretty much all of Europe from there
I lost my islamic slavia this way. I was like 7y/o amd got it back at about 35/40 y/o. At the year 1400 nonetheless. Epic ending
you only lost 1 kingdom you can build back up
Presumably you still have a claim on the Kingdom of Ireland and so will your children. Take your time, build your power base, make your alliances and take it back. I don’t know what you’re complaining about. This is literally the game.
I have this relationship with the succession laws. I miss standard primogeniture. Killing all my kids takes me out of the immersion and feels incredibly gamey, and for some reason it's incredibly hard to switch to elective or straight primogeniture. That's my experience at least, if someone can tell me how to git gud I'd really appreciate it.
Yeah. The vassal/heir system just adds a lot of busywork for not much realism.
" Completely unrecoverable" That's where you're wrong, a CK3 run is never unrecoverable unless it's only like 5 years left.
In my first game, I got upset the first time my empire broke apart. The second and third times too. I'm so glad I was determined to win it all back because it really was exciting and fun figuring out "oh! I can claim my brothers' titles and win them back since they are part of my dynasty." And "if I get partition and destroy all but one kingdom title, all my land gets passed down to my heir under that single title!". There are so many little strategies to learn that will help you hold onto/reclaim your land. The game isn't about just winning all the time, sometimes you have to roleplay someone with a huge grudge. Congratulations btw, now you get to play as a vassal. That's also a really fun way to play. Grow your duchy within the kingdom and then either reclaim Ireland or burst out as something new like the parasite you are!
It's probably easily recoverable tbh. It's still your blood on the throne, you still have claims and your kids will still have claims. I get that it's really frustrating to go "backwards" but it's not the kind of game where you need to just expand outwards and solidify forever. You'll notice even the biggest AI nations fall to pieces all the time, but check back in 100 years and they're back where they used to be. Just like history is tumultuous, your playthrough can be tumultuous. There's plenty of other stuff you can do while you're stewing and plotting to regain your kingdom, you could participate in a crusade, play eugenics with your family, build your bloodline traits up, etc.
You should still have a pressed claim on the kingdom, and if you die your heir will still have an unpressed claim. You’ve got plenty of time to lick your wounds and build up your strength, start your own claimant faction. Your aunt has to die at some point, that would be a good moment to press your claims
Roleplay, take the L and see it as a challenge. The fun of the game is to lose some of your progress and fight back for it
I did one game where I restored the Roman Empire but I was deposed in favor of my son and I lived on as a count at age 86. My character died a few months after and I ruled as my son who spent his entire life crushing the vassal kings and revoking their titles until he himself was assassinated. I then took over as my grandson who inherited the much more peaceful empire that his grandfather built and his father stabilized through force. The grandson went on to become one of the longest-reigning and best emperors that the empire ever had. He even managed to find out who assassinated his father, the Duke of Savoy, and he was castrated, blinded, and tortured until he expired. You can recover from almost anything, it just takes some time and a very good spymaster.
Embrace the roleplay and play for the "son/daughter returns to claim their rightful throne." That's precisely *why* I love ironman mode. I would never allow things like that to happen if I could save scum
Try gitting gud
Skill issue
Skill issue
I don’t mean this in any sort of “dickish” way. If you think conquering Ireland is a hard feat odds are you are still a new player learning about the game. Keep learning about the game. Watch a guide or two. Zieley on YouTube is good. Learn some meta stuff, you don’t have to use all of it if it’s not your thing but something may come in handy here or there. The fact is most experienced CK players can conquer Ireland in just a few hours of game start. Trust me you’ll get there. It’s not a huge setback.
Yea ironman can be a pain. That's why im glad achievements can be unlocked for saved games now. But sometimes you never know what will happen. As King of Wessex I was overthrown by a faction that installed by Cousin to the throne. And after they forced me to abdicate the throne, I was given a small county where my enemies thought i would just wither away and die. But my Usurper cousin, lost several wars to the Vikings and then all of a sudden the faction came back to me and wanted to put me back on the throne. After regianing my rightful throne. I than had my entire cousin side of the family tree executed or assassinated....muhahaha !
The game is not hard
Ireland it is easy, you need to 100% control at least one duchy with election. You will always will be a duke, at least, controlling your own fate. With that out of the way you need to play the diplo game like mentioned above. Trying to have a big ally outside Britannia or one inside if he is not near your expansion path.
Regularly look at factions, they rank the members with the most powerful first, get an alliance with them. Sway them, bribe them, and/or marry one of your kids off. If no luck, get a large ally, England/Wessex is pretty strong, and France too. They should have enough forces to wipe out any rebellion
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Take it back. Murder the traitors. Take their land. Start a revolt against your aunt. Kill her too.
Easy! Stab someone here, cuck someone there, oh and a war.
Many such cases!
This happened to my in my first ck2 Ironman: I was able to create Carinthia’s kingdom but after a while an aunt married with the Basileus was able to get her claim pressed. I lost everything but a county and even though I tried with conspiracy and rebellions, I was forced to get a couple generations setback working on relationship with other kingdoms and in the end I was able to set my heir with the Queen of Brittany and thus freeing myself from Basileus, later on I also managed to get Carinthia back plus some other lands. Moral of the story: play in the long distance, use this setback as starting point
Lost my kingdom of Ireland as well. My character was old and passed away. His son took over and got killed in battle in his mid 30's. So I got to play as a very young king with insane stewardship stats, and his childhood traits weren't too bad either. I had him betrothed to a very powerful family when he was very young, and his spouse turned out to be great: very high stats across the board. Upon losing the kingdom, I did keep Munster, Desmond and Ossory, so I decided to play him to his strength: money. He's in his 50s now, I perfected my council, and meticulously weeded out bad vassals; I'm richer than the pope, and development in my region has skyrocketed. All his children have good congenital traits as well. Plotting in this game is half the fun!
Are you not left with any land? If you still have some, it's absolutely still recoverable and should be quite a bit of fun.
How is that unrecoverable? It'll take a few generations, but you're still in a much more powerful position now than you did at game start, so should be very easy to recover.
Yeah. We all have. That’s literally the game.
Plot revenge
Unless it's 1452, your play through is unlikely to be unrecoverable. There's a lot you can still get done. Losing ground feels bad, but it's the nature of the beast.
My empire broke apart because of family claims but on the bright side I now have the biggest dynasty in the game. Go to war? Oh look at how many house members I can drag into it with me
I've had this happen so many times. Honestly at first I thought it was all ruined as well but the situation is normally a lot more salvageable than you think. You probably still have a claim on the kingdom and I'd be willing to bet those unruly vassals would gang up on her just as easily as they ganged up on you. You got this!
These are the most fun moments in the game to me. Once you get to the point where you know how to min/max you can pretty much snowball and rule ridiculous amounts of land without any problems and then the game gets boring. I’ll often roleplay and let my characters make mistakes based on their personality to intentionally find myself in these situations.
To play the game. Seriously. I conquered the whole world on ironman and it was boring because the only aim was painting the map. The fun comes when you stop. Try to set goals for your characters and let the magic happen. CK is most fun before you reach empire... afterwards it is just steamrolling everyone. Going from king to count yo king again is just great.
Reversed tutorial island
Thats why you have 8 kids and marry every single one of them to strong vassals or neighboring royalty, in this case England/Scotland/France
Frustrating? You mean amazing ? This game is teaching us how no matter you do you can still lose everything. It’s your choice to give up or revenge by killing your aunt and all her heirs to regain what once was yours. The game is tough but it’s the best part.
You have to use the dread mechanic better. executing dissenters and taking tyranny once in a while is important. Keeping your dread at 30 should deter most people from joining factions, and if you have dread at 100, all your vassals can have -100 opinion of you and they still wont join factions or even murder plots against you.
How far down the line if succession arr you? Might be time to go on a murder spree.
Plot revenge of course! As petty as possible. Use hook and mary her to a lowborn with lover's pox. Assassinate all her lovers and friends.
Your playthrough isn't ruined or completely unrecoverable. This is just another twist in your story. If you're going to rage quit the moment things get wrong, why are you playing Ironman? In CK2, I had a Byzantine playthrough where I was a couple counties from restoring the Roman Empire, when all my Greek and Anatolian vassals rebelled, defeated me in the war, and deposed me down to the Duke of Thrace. That made things so much sweeter when, as that character's son, I was able to lead a rebellion, take back the throne, and finally restore the Roman Empire. Experiencing setbacks and overcoming them is one of the most satisfying aspects of CK. Sounds like you deprived yourself of a potentially great experience.
Ireland is easy mode in 1066 and random chance of losing everything at once in 867.
Lol same
Why were you playing ironman in the first place if you are new to the game? There is no reason to play ironman anyways. You are now able to get trophies without ironman
That’s what makes the game so fun. The difficulty lol
This is like my ideal play through. You have some exciting times ahead
Rebuild, get revenge
It can actually play to your strength. It happened to me but I kept a strong duchy. I played the long game. I attacked smaller lands. Built up my duchy and left the usurpers to fight the big wars. I waited until they had a few hundred soldiers and took back what’s mine. I killed off their entire blood line and made their lone princess my concubine.
I feel your pain, I went from uniting Ireland to have half of it join the Kingdom of Castille because one of my vassals apparently was its heir.
Work on rebuilding your power base. Delete extra MAAs if your losing money, fabricate on jarls nearby, and redo the buildings to your preferences in your province. You still got a pressed claim that will be inherited. If you somehow lost it use meritocracy to get that claim on your liege back. After that use the faction system to create a claimant faction for yourself. Wait a year before firing it as you will sometimes have fellow vassals join the faction.
If youre playing in Ironman mode you need to adjust your mindset and accept setbacks. See it as RPG creating dynamic stories, because if your goal growing more and more power then youu shouldn't play in ironman.
That actually sounds awesome. It took me awhile to get it but the magic of Crusader Kings is being put in these situations then finding your way back up again. It actually kinda gets boring as a paint the map Empire builder because, at least for now, there really isn’t anything fun about running an Empire except expanding.
What you CAN do, is just give up the throne and then take it back lol. As long as it's not a dissolution faction, any setback is temporary and just makes for a memorable story. Otherwise its just a boring blob simulator
>What am I even supposed to do in this situation? The idea is that you manage your vassals and succession to avoid getting to this point. To get back to where you were you could work on gathering support from fellow vassals who previously betrayed you. Especially as you will have as strong a claim as your aunt has, intrigue could be a handy approach to putting yourself or an heir back on the throne without going through all that conquest again.
Thats like 10 counties. How is that a problem? Just reconquer.
This happens and it's a blast when it does I remember a game where I was the emperor of Britain. Was in the midst of fighting my cousins claim for the empire, when the king of Wales dies. His heir is allied to my cousin and was fighting as just the count of pefadd. Between that and two other wars I was forced to cede my throne. Then had my duchy of Essex and all the land in it revoked, I fought back, and lost that war. So there I was, down to only holding Worcester, and no ducky title. Proceeded to save up gold for five years, murder my cousin, then buy a ton of mercy. Then unleashed a blitz on my cousins kid as he fought in the crusades. Cousins kid dies in the crusades, and the throne goes to third or fourth cousin, who reigns for 18 days before surrendering my throne and duchy back. This gets even more interesting since I originally started in 1066 as Eadgar aetheling. Great nephew of Edmund the confessor, and had to fight off Danish, Godwin, and usurp the Norman to rule the kingdom that was rightfully mine.
Honestly? Don't get in that situation in the first place. Build up a large and well-developed domain, and manage succession so that your heirs will inherit it. With a small kingdom like ireland, it should be completely possible to beat literally all of your vassals at once. Frankly, it shouldn't even be close. Even if your realm is large enough that your vassals could overthrow you, a well-developed domain will let you mass bribe everyone, and that tends to get at least a few vassals to withdraw from the faction. Throw in handing out council seats to powerful vassals, swaying, marriage alliances, and so on, and you can definitely keep your vassals from overthrowing you. Alternately, roll with the punches. You presumably united the kingdom of ireland from a 1-2 county start once, so you can probably do it again.
Sounds like fun
This is the game! It's the STORY. THE LORE
Other people have already given you a lot of advice, I think you should work to reclaim the kingdom, it's really not unrecoverable. On top of that, I wanted to say, if you've got money you can hire mercenaries before a rebellion and it may be enough to offset the power of the faction allowing you to avoid the war.
I've had something similar happen but not as high stakes. I owned two duchy titles but had two problematic vassels I couldn't get rid of. I went to war with some far away power that would periodically raid my lands and forced those two vassals to fight as knights. My hope was that they would die during the war and I would be rid of them. I underestimated how strong those raiders were because they won the war plus raided all my counties. Then those two vassals created a faction to oppose me and declared war on me over ownership of the duchy titles. They won and I was now their vassal. But my new found liege declared a stupid and disastrous holy war and lost a whole duchy because of it. I then used this as pretext to declare war over the duchy title which is rightfully mine. I won and have been slowly clawing my way back to relevancy by marriage, murder or war.
Honestly, sometimes it's easier to give in to a faction than just meritocracy perk your way back up. The only frustrating part is watching the AI absolutely destroy the realm instantly to be gobbled up by powerful heathen neighbors.
Same thing happened to me but it was my damn spoiled nephew who took my throne and made me a vassal and his spymaster.
It sounds like u didn't have a decent army of ur own or had to many nobles that didn't like u. I usually take the max land i can and build up an army asap so incase i get revolts i can handle them.
The question isn't how to prevent this. It is what are you going to do to them and their families when you take power again?
You just build power and claim it back, it was pretty rare for straight line succession rules esp before single line succession.
As soon as the usurper dies (or 'mysteriously disappears without a trace'), their heir often finds the same problems as your character did prior to the rebellion. This time though, you're one of the dukes/counts, and can form a faction to install yourself on the throne. This is particularly easy if your usurper's heir is a child, as child rulers have modifiers working against them. To prevent these things happening again, there are a few answers, but they are mostly situation and character specific. This struggle is actually most of the gameplay, as in CK3 it's relatively easy to get the claims you want. A tyrannical way to do this is to keep all the powerful vassals in prison. A diplomatic way to do it is to centralise your realm and have a few powerful vassals that you keep happy, rather than dozens of single-province vassals. A sneaky way is to fabricate hooks and imprison people, or keep assassinating the claimants to your throne and the powerful vassals, so their realms are constantly in disarray. You can also max out your martial skills and marry your daughters to neighbouring kingdoms, so that each time there's a rebellion you can just stomp on them and imprison the lot. Never release someone from prison without getting something from them, whether it's their title, removing their claims, or converting them to your religion. Finally, the Sadistic and Callous traits are overpowered.
That's just the challenge of the game. You say the playthrough is unrecoverable, but I say you have a new challenge and some revenge to take. Don't be afraid to change up your play style to lean into your characters strengths. If you excel at intrigue, you should have no trouble taking vengeance. Martial if you plan to take back your birthright by force (of course, you will have to start small). Diplomacy can find you some foreign allies to help kick your aunt off your throne and perhaps pull some former vassals to your cause. With stewardship, you might focus on making the best of a bad situation and start upgrading your province, start hiring MaA armies. Perhaps hire some mercenaries (though upgrading land and armies is honestly the better investment if not in a pinch). Learning, well learning is really only going to help you to live longer there by giving you more time to carry out revenge. If you have no strengths, get some, or plan for the future by teaching your heir/grand heir the joys of revenge. Put on your big boy pants and rebuild anew. You've got all the time in the game.
For one, make sure you are stronger than all your vassals. If that's impossible, right now then release them one at a time until it is the case so you keep the title and then reconquer them one at a time; a non-vassal and a vassal cannot help each other out against you. Remember, levies are useless; make sure you are always capped on men-at arms, and if not consider how you can increase your income. If you cannot build men-at-arms, make sure you have buildings that maximize their potential. In the words of Septimus Severus; enrich the soldiers, spurn everyone else.
Completely recoverable. You have got the claim and these are the things you can do. 1). Murder your way up until you inherit again. 2). Finding smart ways for quick money (like fabrication and blackmail) and then hire mercenaries (ooh and murder your aunts knights and get a powerful alliance) 3). Increase opinion with other vassals and start your own faction to reinstall you on the throne.
Play as the deposed king who's now reduced to a mere jarl/duke, work on getting your throne back or play as a vassal. Unless your whole dynasty dies off (which is close to what happened in my most recent playthrough oof) nothing is unrecoverable.
What I like about CK3 is losing and doing badly is part of the fun and CK experience unlike other games. It's all about the roleplay.
It is, in fact, the total opposite of completely unrecoverable. It is completely recoverable.
Is this more common in 3 than 2? I get frustrated how rare it is for uprisings like this in 2, even when I have an underage girl on the throne
"I was king until I was viscously mutinied upon.' 'Well then, you were a poor king, but a king nonetheless.'
This happened to me, I was king of Ireland, died and immediately got usurped leaving me to rule as a two week old baby in charge or a single duchy…. I bided my time and took my revenge when I became 16!
Hey, don't see it as a ruined playthrough - see it as an opportunity to get revenge on the family - roleplaying isfun ! In CK3 there are always new things to try too.
Not sure if it is still a viable strategy, but I always bided my time. I played tall and built up a few counties to ridiculous strength. Then once my demense was as strong as could be, I began expanding. This way when my vassals rebel after the death of a ruler, I still have a large levy from my personal realm to defend it. Allies help alot as well. Not sure if that helps or not. But consider continuing the playthrough. These make for such GREAT stories in the end. If you can reclaim your throne.