PDOX Games VIII: Communism Will Win

[Slutsk Horde]

One of the most fun runs I've had so far. A Hungarian Manichean feudal empire in Russia.

Earlier, before converting to feudalism, I encountered a bug where I could have two tribes in a province.

Upon feudalizing, I noticed that both tribes have converted to castles, and of course it gave me a city, but no temple, despite there being two empty slots.

On another note, some people…

[Impaled Nazarene]

Has paradox fixed the security issues or do they only care when your credit card is at stake?

[Alvecia]

Has paradox fixed the security issues or do they only care when your credit card is at stake?

This was posted to the Reddit thread yesterday

Update from u/konbendith (Head of Communications for Paradox):

Hey, we've been made aware of this issue earlier today by the community. Thanks for flagging it! As Podcat quickly mentioned in this thread earlier, the studio is working on a fix of the issue right now. It is, of course, top priority and will be sorted as soon as possible. To the best of our knowledge, the flaw has been spotted, but not exploited. To be safe though, we recommend not updating or adding new mods until we've deployed a fix.

Can't even find a thread on the forums talking about it, never mind a statement. Can't see anything on the PDI or PD Dev Studio twitter feeds.

[Impaled Nazarene]

Has paradox fixed the security issues or do they only care when your credit card is at stake?

This was posted to the Reddit thread yesterday

Update from u/konbendith (Head of Communications for Paradox):

Hey, we've been made aware of this issue earlier today by the community. Thanks for flagging it! As Podcat quickly mentioned in this thread earlier, the studio is working on a fix of the issue right now. It is, of course, top priority and will be sorted as soon as possible. To the best of our knowledge, the flaw has been spotted, but not exploited. To be safe though, we recommend not updating or adding new mods until we've deployed a fix.

Can't even find a thread on the forums talking about it, never mind a statement. Can't see anything on the PDI or PD Dev Studio twitter feeds.

So its either a fake or they don't give a shit?

[Alvecia]

This was posted to the Reddit thread yesterday


Can't even find a thread on the forums talking about it, never mind a statement. Can't see anything on the PDI or PD Dev Studio twitter feeds.

So its either a fake or they don't give a shit?

Or maybe it's only been a day since it was revealed, they found out, and they're still working on it.

[Bralia]

This was posted to the Reddit thread yesterday


Can't even find a thread on the forums talking about it, never mind a statement. Can't see anything on the PDI or PD Dev Studio twitter feeds.

So its either a fake or they don't give a shit?

They definitely don't give a shit.

[Danubian Peoples]

So its either a fake or they don't give a shit?

They definitely don't give a shit.

Well that certainly looks like shit-giving to me, what with a minor patch to fix the issue at hand. But to each to their own I suppose.

Anyway, I just had the most off-the-walls game of CK2 in a while. I was playing as Pakhom Bashmur (the one Coptic guy in CK2, also a reference to a Tolstoy story apparently) again, and by 860 I had wrangled myself the Arabian Empire with a fabricated claim and a faction. Unfortunately the same empire was being assaulted by the Pretender Shia Caliphate, who've established themselves in the Levant and Syria. I guess realms changing hands like this does a number on troop counts because I could muster about, half as many troops as I should be able to. Needless to say, they won their invasion. And then they won a holy war for some Persian duchy afterwards. For some reason they were jacked up with their event troops still (not to mention the endless waves of raiders pouring from north of Persia. I searched up how to deal with the Pretender Shias and it turns out that their event troops should stick around until the pretender caliph dies. I thought long and hard about this as it felt like a while had passed, more than one generation of ruler that is, and a I moused over the Shia caliph and.. he was 32. Wow, time really did not fly there. Also my eternal rivals in any Abbasid vassal game, the Muhallabids, are really pissed at me because one, I'm Miaphysite, two, I slighted their ancestors, and three, my dad slighted their ancestors. I did get most of the empire barring the afformentioned Muhallabids to convert, and even if it is an insincere conversion I have secret cults off just for that.

Other less important things I did.
-My current character is only on the throne because my previous character (his dad) got the silent kiler bloodline and axed some guys in the way of inheritance. Gavelkind laws at the time because new emperor and all.
-I got my hands on the Ark of the Covenant. I simply invited its holder to my court, and them arrested and killed him.
-Got an acheivement for getting the Hedonist trait in this run.

I would put a spoiler here but NS won't let me

One of the most fun runs I've had so far. A Hungarian Manichean feudal empire in Russia.

(Image)

Earlier, before converting to feudalism, I encountered a bug where I could have two tribes in a province.

(Image)

Upon feudalizing, I noticed that both tribes have converted to castles, and of course it gave me a city, but no temple, despite there being two empty slots.

(Image)

On another note, some people…

(Image)

Good on you for creating what appears to be a titular empire title. I've never like titular kingdoms, when khans create them during the settling process de jure drift will leave specks of 'ths place is de jure part of no empire at all,' ruining the de jure empire map forever, until they de jure drift into an empire that is. Also good is the general out-there-ness of the run, the combination of Russian land, Hungarian culture and Manichean faith is straight out of a Haesteinn game. Would like to ask where yout bloodline went though. IIRC the Trajans have a special bloodline or something? May be mistaken though.

[Impaled Nazarene]

So my grandmother is dying and it could be anywhere from tonight to weeks from now, and I've been preparing for this for about 5 years so let me say this:

Love the people you love, make sure they know how much you appreciate them because no matter how many cliches you read throughout your life it still hurts when it happens.

[Slutsk Horde]

Good on you for creating what appears to be a titular empire title. I've never like titular kingdoms, when khans create them during the settling process de jure drift will leave specks of 'ths place is de jure part of no empire at all,' ruining the de jure empire map forever, until they de jure drift into an empire that is. Also good is the general out-there-ness of the run, the combination of Russian land, Hungarian culture and Manichean faith is straight out of a Haesteinn game. Would like to ask where yout bloodline went though. IIRC the Trajans have a special bloodline or something? May be mistaken though.

If a vassal clan already has a non-clan kingdom title, and you as Khagan don't already have an empire title, then you will settle as a titular empire. Sadly my empire does not seem to want to de jure drift.
And no, Tarján does not have a special bloodline. I think you got confused with Ashina (Khazaria) or Attila (Dulo, Bulgaria/Bolghar). As for the Manichean faith, there was the Burtas nomad just next to me which has a Manichean clan, so I just took their concubine.

[Serrus]

So my grandmother is dying and it could be anywhere from tonight to weeks from now, and I've been preparing for this for about 5 years so let me say this:

Love the people you love, make sure they know how much you appreciate them because no matter how many cliches you read throughout your life it still hurts when it happens.

*hugs Naz*

Good on you for creating what appears to be a titular empire title. I've never like titular kingdoms, when khans create them during the settling process de jure drift will leave specks of 'ths place is de jure part of no empire at all,' ruining the de jure empire map forever, until they de jure drift into an empire that is. Also good is the general out-there-ness of the run, the combination of Russian land, Hungarian culture and Manichean faith is straight out of a Haesteinn game. Would like to ask where yout bloodline went though. IIRC the Trajans have a special bloodline or something? May be mistaken though.

If a vassal clan already has a non-clan kingdom title, and you as Khagan don't already have an empire title, then you will settle as a titular empire. Sadly my empire does not seem to want to de jure drift.
And no, Tarján does not have a special bloodline. I think you got confused with Ashina (Khazaria) or Attila (Dulo, Bulgaria/Bolghar). As for the Manichean faith, there was the Burtas nomad just next to me which has a Manichean clan, so I just took their concubine.

And I'm stealing your run idea, thank you for the guide

[The Imperial Reach]

I finally - finally - finished a CKII game all the way through to the end. Took forever but the satisfaction is immensely worth it.

Unfortunately my game didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I started as Asturias, a dangerous start, but managed to hold out long enough to be able to turn the tide on the Umayyads and wipe them from the face of Iberia - uniting the peninsula and flipping all provinces to Castilian (except the Balearics, which remained Catalan for some reason) before beginning to expand. I got flooded with buffs after jumping into every crusade I could and getting a shit ton of gold, prestige, piety, and relics for it. Honestly the rewards for crusading are a bit OP. It only took me like 2-3 before I could start cheesing my way through the game by making everybody like me, which wasn't hard at all. Just blow all the gold you get on expensive projects that improve opinion while hoarding as many relics as possible. In the end even the staunchest heretics and heathens liked even my worst rulers. The Empire of Hispania soon expanded to take over Sardinia and Corsica, which much like the Balearics didn't flip to Castilian at all for some reason and remained Sardinian & Italian, respectively. I considered multiple times to take over the Maghreb but decided against too much expansion. Unfortunately the only other avenue of expansion that left me with was Western Europe, which proved difficult once the HRE became a thing and began NOMNOMNOMing everyone else. I did beat them enough to secure Aquitaine, France, and Brittany (thanks to an Alexandrian bloodline) but beyond that I didn't expand much. I had hoped to take Frisia, Lotharingia, Burgundy, Italy, Romagna, and Sicily but never got the chance. The HRE eventually got just so big that even having all the mercenary companies and bands on my payroll couldn't match the size of their armies. It was insane.

On the plus side I kicked out the Aztecs when they tried to invade Brittany, and also saved British Wales from them as well. For a time Catholicism ruled all the way to the steps of Balochistan but by the end of the game the Islamic Empires managed to push back all the way to Jerusalem and Ethiopia. This is mostly because the crusades that were launched after pushing the Muslims out of Persia were aimed at massive heretic empires in Africa. Funnily enough, the Muslims never won a Jihad. Neither Sunni nor Shi'ite. They both literally lost every single Jihad either of their Caliphs' ever declared which was fucking funny as Hell lmao. It looked like the Western Protectorate was going to take over the east for a while but they never got far, same goes for the Mongols who spawned with Genghis but didn't get far outside of Siberia. The Plague was surprisingly weaker than I expected, but it did manage to off like half my court through a creepy event where Death is disguised as a masked lady and infiltrates a little shindig you throw to put your mind at ease about all the death and suffering outside. First time I encountered that event chain. Cool, but creepy and caught me totally off-guard.

By the way, if you build a pyramid and install traps be careful if you plan to bury your last ruler in it because every time I did that I lost 2 random courtiers to the traps. It never says this can happen as the description only states that there's a chance attackers can be caught in them if they siege the province. No mention of accidental deaths by spelunking. I know better now, thankfully.

[Ithalian Empire]

I finally - finally - finished a CKII game all the way through to the end. Took forever but the satisfaction is immensely worth it.

Unfortunately my game didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I started as Asturias, a dangerous start, but managed to hold out long enough to be able to turn the tide on the Umayyads and wipe them from the face of Iberia - uniting the peninsula and flipping all provinces to Castilian (except the Balearics, which remained Catalan for some reason) before beginning to expand. I got flooded with buffs after jumping into every crusade I could and getting a shit ton of gold, prestige, piety, and relics for it. Honestly the rewards for crusading are a bit OP. It only took me like 2-3 before I could start cheesing my way through the game by making everybody like me, which wasn't hard at all. Just blow all the gold you get on expensive projects that improve opinion while hoarding as many relics as possible. In the end even the staunchest heretics and heathens liked even my worst rulers. The Empire of Hispania soon expanded to take over Sardinia and Corsica, which much like the Balearics didn't flip to Castilian at all for some reason and remained Sardinian & Italian, respectively. I considered multiple times to take over the Maghreb but decided against too much expansion. Unfortunately the only other avenue of expansion that left me with was Western Europe, which proved difficult once the HRE became a thing and began NOMNOMNOMing everyone else. I did beat them enough to secure Aquitaine, France, and Brittany (thanks to an Alexandrian bloodline) but beyond that I didn't expand much. I had hoped to take Frisia, Lotharingia, Burgundy, Italy, Romagna, and Sicily but never got the chance. The HRE eventually got just so big that even having all the mercenary companies and bands on my payroll couldn't match the size of their armies. It was insane.

On the plus side I kicked out the Aztecs when they tried to invade Brittany, and also saved British Wales from them as well. For a time Catholicism ruled all the way to the steps of Balochistan but by the end of the game the Islamic Empires managed to push back all the way to Jerusalem and Ethiopia. This is mostly because the crusades that were launched after pushing the Muslims out of Persia were aimed at massive heretic empires in Africa. Funnily enough, the Muslims never won a Jihad. Neither Sunni nor Shi'ite. They both literally lost every single Jihad either of their Caliphs' ever declared which was fucking funny as Hell lmao. It looked like the Western Protectorate was going to take over the east for a while but they never got far, same goes for the Mongols who spawned with Genghis but didn't get far outside of Siberia. The Plague was surprisingly weaker than I expected, but it did manage to off like half my court through a creepy event where Death is disguised as a masked lady and infiltrates a little shindig you throw to put your mind at ease about all the death and suffering outside. First time I encountered that event chain. Cool, but creepy and caught me totally off-guard.

By the way, if you build a pyramid and install traps be careful if you plan to bury your last ruler in it because every time I did that I lost 2 random courtiers to the traps. It never says this can happen as the description only states that there's a chance attackers can be caught in them if they siege the province. No mention of accidental deaths by spelunking. I know better now, thankfully.

Ah yes, the event chain based on the Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe. A great story honestly.

[Slutsk Horde]

If a vassal clan already has a non-clan kingdom title, and you as Khagan don't already have an empire title, then you will settle as a titular empire. Sadly my empire does not seem to want to de jure drift.
And no, Tarján does not have a special bloodline. I think you got confused with Ashina (Khazaria) or Attila (Dulo, Bulgaria/Bolghar). As for the Manichean faith, there was the Burtas nomad just next to me which has a Manichean clan, so I just took their concubine.

And I'm stealing your run idea, thank you for the guide

A Magyar Russian run? Tell me how it goes.

[Ifreann]

So my grandmother is dying and it could be anywhere from tonight to weeks from now, and I've been preparing for this for about 5 years so let me say this:

Love the people you love, make sure they know how much you appreciate them because no matter how many cliches you read throughout your life it still hurts when it happens.

Take care of yourself

[The Imperial Reach]

I finally - finally - finished a CKII game all the way through to the end. Took forever but the satisfaction is immensely worth it.

Unfortunately my game didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I started as Asturias, a dangerous start, but managed to hold out long enough to be able to turn the tide on the Umayyads and wipe them from the face of Iberia - uniting the peninsula and flipping all provinces to Castilian (except the Balearics, which remained Catalan for some reason) before beginning to expand. I got flooded with buffs after jumping into every crusade I could and getting a shit ton of gold, prestige, piety, and relics for it. Honestly the rewards for crusading are a bit OP. It only took me like 2-3 before I could start cheesing my way through the game by making everybody like me, which wasn't hard at all. Just blow all the gold you get on expensive projects that improve opinion while hoarding as many relics as possible. In the end even the staunchest heretics and heathens liked even my worst rulers. The Empire of Hispania soon expanded to take over Sardinia and Corsica, which much like the Balearics didn't flip to Castilian at all for some reason and remained Sardinian & Italian, respectively. I considered multiple times to take over the Maghreb but decided against too much expansion. Unfortunately the only other avenue of expansion that left me with was Western Europe, which proved difficult once the HRE became a thing and began NOMNOMNOMing everyone else. I did beat them enough to secure Aquitaine, France, and Brittany (thanks to an Alexandrian bloodline) but beyond that I didn't expand much. I had hoped to take Frisia, Lotharingia, Burgundy, Italy, Romagna, and Sicily but never got the chance. The HRE eventually got just so big that even having all the mercenary companies and bands on my payroll couldn't match the size of their armies. It was insane.

On the plus side I kicked out the Aztecs when they tried to invade Brittany, and also saved British Wales from them as well. For a time Catholicism ruled all the way to the steps of Balochistan but by the end of the game the Islamic Empires managed to push back all the way to Jerusalem and Ethiopia. This is mostly because the crusades that were launched after pushing the Muslims out of Persia were aimed at massive heretic empires in Africa. Funnily enough, the Muslims never won a Jihad. Neither Sunni nor Shi'ite. They both literally lost every single Jihad either of their Caliphs' ever declared which was fucking funny as Hell lmao. It looked like the Western Protectorate was going to take over the east for a while but they never got far, same goes for the Mongols who spawned with Genghis but didn't get far outside of Siberia. The Plague was surprisingly weaker than I expected, but it did manage to off like half my court through a creepy event where Death is disguised as a masked lady and infiltrates a little shindig you throw to put your mind at ease about all the death and suffering outside. First time I encountered that event chain. Cool, but creepy and caught me totally off-guard.

By the way, if you build a pyramid and install traps be careful if you plan to bury your last ruler in it because every time I did that I lost 2 random courtiers to the traps. It never says this can happen as the description only states that there's a chance attackers can be caught in them if they siege the province. No mention of accidental deaths by spelunking. I know better now, thankfully.

Oh, forgot to mention that Basques ended up dominating Central Europe after a De Vasconia got elected Holy Roman Emperor and pretty much Basque-ified Germany and Italy... somehow. By the end of the game Basques were the dominant culture in Lotharingia, Germany, and Italy.

Once you go Basque you can't go back.

[Dome Artan]

Oh, forgot to mention that Basques ended up dominating Central Europe after a De Vasconia got elected Holy Roman Emperor and pretty much Basque-ified Germany and Italy... somehow. By the end of the game Basques were the dominant culture in Lotharingia, Germany, and Italy.

Once you go Basque you can't go back.

Lol thats crazy I don't think I've ever seen any weird culture changes, and definitely none that massive.

[Serrus]

And I'm stealing your run idea, thank you for the guide

A Magyar Russian run? Tell me how it goes.

Nay, a Magyar Manichean run. Where I'll settle I know not.

[Danubian Peoples]

So can I ask a question? How do CK2 mods work, really? A while back I asked about CK2 mods and it was suggested that I try out After the End Fan Fork. I did, decided that post-apocalyptic America wasn't my cup of tea and unsubscribed. Unfortunately the mod still showed up in the launcher so I had to go into CK2's mod files and delete the mod from there. This is very different from my experience with HOI4 mods, where unsubscribing from mods on the Steam workshop will make the go away gameside. So I'm thinking about trying AFTEFF again and maybe some of the other mods everyone on Reddit talks about (at least the ones that can be found on Steam) and I ask, how do I cleanly install and uninstall CK2 mods from the Steam workshop? Without y'know, digging through CK2's files and all that. And what of mods from not-Steam? Like HIP and CK2+? How do I install those? Thanks in advance.

[Purpelia]

So can I ask a question? How do CK2 mods work, really? A while back I asked about CK2 mods and it was suggested that I try out After the End Fan Fork. I did, decided that post-apocalyptic America wasn't my cup of tea and unsubscribed. Unfortunately the mod still showed up in the launcher so I had to go into CK2's mod files and delete the mod from there. This is very different from my experience with HOI4 mods, where unsubscribing from mods on the Steam workshop will make the go away gameside. So I'm thinking about trying AFTEFF again and maybe some of the other mods everyone on Reddit talks about (at least the ones that can be found on Steam) and I ask, how do I cleanly install and uninstall CK2 mods from the Steam workshop? Without y'know, digging through CK2's files and all that. And what of mods from not-Steam? Like HIP and CK2+? How do I install those? Thanks in advance.

When you start the launcher you'll get the option to unckech the mod to disable it. Exactly as with HOI4. The mods will obviously still show up in the launcher forever more but they won't actually be active. That is a deliberate feature to allow you to turn them back on later. The launcher is basically a switchboard for mods that you can turn on, off or combine at will.

As for installation some mods like to pretend they are steam anyway so you need to manually paste them into the steam folder with the appropriate retarded number codes and everything and others go into the mods folder. Both of those are in your %user%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II folder. But it takes some figuring out how to properly paste them.

[Danubian Peoples]

So can I ask a question? How do CK2 mods work, really? A while back I asked about CK2 mods and it was suggested that I try out After the End Fan Fork. I did, decided that post-apocalyptic America wasn't my cup of tea and unsubscribed. Unfortunately the mod still showed up in the launcher so I had to go into CK2's mod files and delete the mod from there. This is very different from my experience with HOI4 mods, where unsubscribing from mods on the Steam workshop will make the go away gameside. So I'm thinking about trying AFTEFF again and maybe some of the other mods everyone on Reddit talks about (at least the ones that can be found on Steam) and I ask, how do I cleanly install and uninstall CK2 mods from the Steam workshop? Without y'know, digging through CK2's files and all that. And what of mods from not-Steam? Like HIP and CK2+? How do I install those? Thanks in advance.

When you start the launcher you'll get the option to unckech the mod to disable it. Exactly as with HOI4. The mods will obviously still show up in the launcher forever more but they won't actually be active. That is a deliberate feature to allow you to turn them back on later. The launcher is basically a switchboard for mods that you can turn on, off or combine at will.

As for installation some mods like to pretend they are steam anyway so you need to manually paste them into the steam folder with the appropriate retarded number codes and everything and others go into the mods folder. Both of those are in your %user%\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II folder. But it takes some figuring out how to properly paste them.

Yes but that's what I want to go away. The option on the launcher's mod library. When I uninstall a HOI4 mod, it stops showing up on the launcher. And yes, that is still true for the new launcher post-Fork I believe. CK2 is different. Unsubscribing doesn't make the mod vanish, it's still on the launcher and I assume it can still be turned on. Kinda want to rectify that without needing to manually remove it from CK2 when I unsubscribe.

[Purpelia]

I don't know than. I genuinely newer subscribe to mods on steam as I find it easier to just avoid steam as much as humanly possible.

[Serrus]

This campaign has promise. The starting king of France bit it in a holy war over Sardinia, so I swooped in. Now to nail down that exclave, as I do have claims on it.

[Impaled Nazarene]

So my grandmother is dying and it could be anywhere from tonight to weeks from now, and I've been preparing for this for about 5 years so let me say this:

Love the people you love, make sure they know how much you appreciate them because no matter how many cliches you read throughout your life it still hurts when it happens.

She has passed away

If you wish to make a paradox tribute for her play a native american tribe from the northeast.

[The Huskar Social Union]

So my grandmother is dying and it could be anywhere from tonight to weeks from now, and I've been preparing for this for about 5 years so let me say this:

Love the people you love, make sure they know how much you appreciate them because no matter how many cliches you read throughout your life it still hurts when it happens.

She has passed away

If you wish to make a paradox tribute for her play a native american tribe from the northeast.

You have my sympathies mate, sorry you are going through such a rough time.

If you wana vent about stuff feel free to throw me a telegram.

[Serrus]

She has passed away

If you wish to make a paradox tribute for her play a native american tribe from the northeast.

You have my sympathies mate, sorry you are going through such a rough time.

If you wana vent about stuff feel free to throw me a telegram.

Same here *more hugs for Naz*