CK2 GoT Mod: Ironborn Tips I

So you've played the Ironborn in the GoT Mod, but you're frustrated at the steep requirements for the "Invasion" Casus Belli, specifically the requirement that your ruler is Ambitious/Ruthless/Greedy. These traits are hard to get, though you may be able to pick up Ruthless by letting slaves escape, catching them, and lashing them.

However, it does make sense from a book perspective. A massive Ironborn invasion should be a rare thing, not a commonplace occurrence. Only a certain kind of leader has the cunning and know-how to rip the Riverlands away from the Iron Throne (or the North if you have a thing for women who wear furs, I suppose).

However, here is some advice on how to make sure you can make it easier for yourself to get the Ironborn Invasion casus belli. And no, I'm not going to suggest Elective Succession. This way is more reliable, and will ensure you keep the Seastone Chair.

1) Have your Heir Marry a MILF
By MILF, I mean "attractive older woman," for those of you living under a rock that have not seen American Pie. In the game, women hit menopause at 45. Marry a woman as old as possible, and try not to have any trueborn kids with her (make your heir spend time raiding or in command, which will impart a fertility malus).


2) Raid and Reave like the Grey King Himself
You need a large amount of nubile saltwives for this to work. In most cases, your Iron King will produce a ridiculous amount of bastards from his concubines. So when your heir takes the throne, make sure you get those concubines.


3) Switch your Succession to Ultimogeniture
Primogeniture also works if you have no trueborn sons. But now you can see where I'm going with this: we're going to educate all our bastard kids (or as many as possible), and we'll legitimize only the one(s) with Ambitious/Ruthless/Greedy!

The main flaw with Ultimogeniture is that Ironborn leaders live quite violent lives. You may find yourself killed off in a duel, or murdered by your concubine (this happens very often for me) before you figure out which of your heirs is the correct one. If you are worried about that, you can minimize the chance of the former happening by chilling in your castle up until a siege is about to end, and then switch yourself to a commander so you can take saltwives. Apparently, serving the Drowned God gives you powers of teleportation.

Although personally, I'd rather be able to tap Melisandre's ass than teleport around the world. So I guess I'm with Red Rahloo.


In any case, you've prepared a legendary conqueror, content with not just a few Islands, but who plans to take Westeros itself and bring the Ironborn back to glory. What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder, better, faster, stronger!

From my last Ironborn game. If you want to have some fun with the Ironborn, you should play Robert's Rebellion and declare independence, then go kidnap Mad King Aerys II, which will automatically set your warscore to 100%. 

In the vast majority of cases, Robert Baratheon will win. I've only seen AI Rhaegar Targaryen win twice, and this was one of those times. Even then, I still won independence by kidnapping Aerys.

Remember, the Iron Throne is much, much stronger than you. You can see here how the Dragon utterly dwarfs the Kraken, and militarily Rhaegar outnumbers us about 10:1 (assuming equal vassal loyalty on both sides).  The equalizer is money. You need to raid as much as possible and build up your stacks of gold so you can buy mercs (and even the Golden Company) protect yourself when the Iron Throne tries to subjugate you. And it will.

Expect to spend a few thousand gold on mercenaries protecting yourself from the Iron Throne when it comes for you.

From my last game. After winning his independence, Iron King Balon proved to be no friend of the rebellion: he sacked Winterfell, took Catelyn Tully as a saltwife, and drowned the baby Robb!

Notice that Eddard Stark has crowned himself "King in the North": the AI will declare independence if it loses a megawar and the winner writes a bill of attainder stripping the loser's titles.

CK2 Advice for Newbs: How to Manage Succession Crises

One thing a newbie quickly finds out is that it doesn't matter how amazing or illustrious your emperor is, if his craven and arbitrary son loses in a fortnight what took you decades to build. In this post, we will talk about ways to stop that from happening.

1) Vassal Heir Grooming
Have your emperor educate vassal heirs. You want them to get traits like Content, Craven, and Humble (side note: this is the purpose of educating people with "negative" traits). When the next generation takes over, you'll have that many fewer people ready to form factions.

2) Stockpile Cash
You should have set Feudal Taxes to the second-highest level ("Large" or Medium" in Vanilla or the GoT Mod), and some players like to put them on Harsh, with the option of lowering them if your new ruler is particularly inept. This is easiest to do as a small entity, but if you are a mature and well-loved ruler, you can change tax laws in an empire as well.

You will need the cash for 3 things: 1) gifting the more pliable vassals to keep them in line, 2) paying your retinue, and 3) buying mercs if a war happens.

3) Vassal Rearrangement
This is a bit more sophisticated, and sort of unnecessary in a Christian playthrough, but I've read of people doing this to good effect in Muslim and Pagan playthroughs (where succession crises are brutal). If you have a spare Duchy (in the dejure area of the necessary kingdom), you could just have your new emperor gift it to one of your kings as a welcome present. But you also could give it to an Ambitious person, then vassal-transfer it to the king. The king will have his hands full trying to keep the Ambitious vassal in line. One less threat to the establishment!

You can also do this with Counts and Dukes.

4) Avoid wars at the start of your new reign
Many times, empires will rely on their retinue, especially when taking down small entities. This can be dangerous, because the enemy faction strength will climb dramatically as you take casualties. So make sure you chill for a bit.

5) Play Pagans and Muslims
Succession crises are bad enough for Christians, but it's even worse for a Pagan or a Muslim, because of short reign modifiers for the Pagan, and decadence/agnatic succession forcing you to land everybody and deal with the consequences as a Muslim. If you want, you can take the skills you learned as a Pagan and transfer them to your Christian playthroughs!



Of course, even if you do all that, this may happen. In that game, I had 3 Ambitious Kings who got their titles due to revolts (perhaps it's my fault for installing a Lunatic on the throne of Aquitaine).

AND WHO, ARE YOU, THE PROUD LORD SAID, THAT I MUST BOW SO LOW?

The war ended just like the Reyne Rebellion did. Once your retinue and cash pool is large enough, nothing can stand against your might.

CK2 Game Planning: Vengeance, Justice, Fire and Blood

WARNING: The net is dark and full of spoilers. Read at your own risk.

So I intended to play Gormon Peake and put a Blackfyre on the Iron Throne, but it didn't work. What I mean to say is that in After the Spring, I find that Bittersteel frequently takes the Iron Throne, but the last time it happened, the Faith Militant rose up against him (a Blackfyre is a Targaryen by blood, and both have the "Abomination of Incest" malus). The High Septon won the war and destroyed the Iron Throne, and thus all of the former Lords Paramount were independent again.

I continued playing and took over the Reach and the Stormlands as House Peake. I could have taken the Iron Throne for the Blackfyres, but how could I take something that doesn't exist?

So instead, I will be playing as Doran of House Martell, and trying to put a Targaryen on the Iron Throne.

We have two Targaryens to work with: Viserys and Daenerys. Viserys has the "Lunatic" trait, which means that if he becomes king, there will be a civil war in the fortnight. Daenerys, if I remember correctly, is a woman with the "Attractive" trait, which makes her reign very easy. So I guess Daenerys would be preferred, but I'll start factions for both. After we take the throne, I might switch to playing Viserys: it will make for more of a challenge.

I plan to give one of the Sand Snakes (Oberyn's daughters) to Viserys, and Quentyn to Daenerys (matrilineally). I will groom Arianne for the throne, as expected. Arianne is also an attractive woman, which makes things easier for us.

On the home front, I will use invite/land/press to take land away from the Stormlands and replace them with vassals loyal to Dorne. I will send Oberyn (the Spymaster) and my Master of Laws to Mace Tyrell to get him into my faction.

Robert Baratheon himself is untouchable because of his massive "friendship" bonuses with Eddard Stark, Hoster Tully, and Jon Arryn. But all men must die, and Robert will die faster than most because of his rabid alcoholism (he has the "Drunkard" trait in game). After that, there will be plotting and fighting.

In my Balon Greyjoy playthrough, Robert Baratheon actually got deposed somehow (he accepted the faction demands). Must have been some serious mismanagement on his part. In any case, I know people worry that Crowned Stag playthroughs will become dull and stagnant, but I've seen vicious civil wars happen even with the human doing nothing. Now imagine the human actively plotting to bring down the Baratheons. It will be fun!

Blobbing Against Karlings

So I intended to post a playthrough of a random Count-->Emperor, starting in Burgundy.

Well, I made a few strategic mistakes, so I don't think any newbies can learn too much from that (which was originally my intention).

However, I do think there is something they can learn: how to blob against the Karlings.

The Karlings are the descendants of Carolus Magnus (Charlemagne), and a series of split-up kingdoms). By CK2 rules, same dynasty members are always allied with one another. This makes things very frustrating when you're trying to expand against them, as you'll quickly end up fighting against 3-4 kingdoms.

This can be fun if you're playing as a Karling, but less fun if you're a small Count trying to build his own Empire in a world that they dominate.

In this game, I began as such a Count, and am right now blobbing against them.

Our lovely dynasty at the start of the game.

Oh God...Medium Crown Authority makes things very frustrating, because you can no longer wage war on other vassals. I need FREEDOM!

Note: I have enough land to make Burgundy, but you cannot usurp Burgundy if your liege has it and it is the same tier as his main title, so I need to declare independence. The war is pretty easy because Lotharingia is weak and the Karlings are off fighting their 23rd civil war.

I do an invite/land/press on Slavonia. If this isn't possible, do it on another state near the pagans (within 2 provinces, because you need to be that close to get the Holy War Casus Belli). If that isn't possible, speed up the process along with assassinations. If that isn't possible, try invite/land/press on the states in Spain and go after the Muslims. If that isn't possible, use marriage/assassination/inheritance to get the land you need (they need to be Agnatic/Cognatic for this). If that isn't possible, use Fabricate Claims on a county next to the Pagans.

Make sure you have an alliance with the HRE or the other Karling stated for the next part of this. You won't be fighting them, but you WILL be fighting the Pagans. Offensive Pagans like the Norse or Tengri won't be too difficult to beat with some mercs and minor allied assistance. But the Defensive Pagans (Slav, Romuva) are nightmares even with the HRE on your side, because they are balanced around facing off against massive Christian invasions.

Remember to keep your Piety up so you can use Holy Orders. I wouldn't have won against the Slavs without the Knights Templar.

If the enemy starts to convert after you Holy War them, things get troublesome. You can try to repeat the process in another area, or you can just use other expansion strategies like the marriage game.

In any case, some Holy Wars later, and I formed this!

After becoming an Emperor, the game gets quite a bit easier. You can invite/land/press on the King-tier level. Maintain your ties to the Karlings and you can gobble up some of the lesser Karling states this way. Or you can continue being a zealot and defender of Catholicism as you put the pagans to the sword!

CK Post VII: Joffrey Part IV

WARNING: The net is dark and full of spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Part IV of the Joffrey playthrough!

Where we left off, with Margery and the Tyrells planning to steal the throne.

Significantly less of a threat than Mace Tyrell would have been, but at least it's a good opportunity for Joffrey to get some combat experience (and maybe some new torture victims huehue).

Joffrey leads his armies to yet another triumph!

Joffrey returns home triumphant, only to note that Sansa wasn't there! (Though in all honesty, she was praying to the Seven to save her from Joffrey. That, or she was building a fake Winterfell).

Of course, our illustrious king didn't care. He instead started sliding his hands up the dresses of Sansa's ladies-in-waiting.

The Tyrell pretenders make yet another attempt on the Iron Throne. But Joffrey is a king of blood and iron: he will break before he bends. And blood and iron is what he will serve these usurpers!

The Lannister War Council on how to deal with the Tyrells. Hear Me Roar!

War, sex, torture, our king is truly a Renaissance man.

Joffrey eliminates the threat from the Reach and removes the Tyrells from governorship of the region, in favor of someone more compliant (the Hightowers IIRC).

The Syrio Forel event, Joffrey hires a Braavosi duelist to teach his bastard how to fight.

And that's where the playthrough comes to an end. Sort of abrupt, I know, and I left out a lot of the child-rearing events because they're sorta dull. I can include them next time.

In any case, it was fun. I'll probably make a more robust playthrough in the future.

CK Post VI: Random Screens from a Mad King Game

WARNING: The net is dark and full of terrors. Read at your own risk.

School starts tomorrow, so expect a reduced post frequency. That said, Joffrey Part IV should be up by Tuesday.

In any case, I played Aerys Targaryen II (The Mad King) today in the Robert's Rebellion scenario. It's a nightmare trying to win against the Usurper's armies, but it's definitely doable. The basic strategy is to join up with the Reach, then beat down the Riverland and Stormland doomstacks. To add a bit of nuance to it, a related substrategy (that I used this game) is to Iron Bank/Merc and eliminate the Usurper's armies (that are just forming up) with your Crownland forces, and then meet up with the forces of the Reach and eliminate the Riverland doomstacks.

If Mace Tyrell goes full retard mode, the scenario probably won't be winnable. That's why I don't really enjoy these setpiece scenarios: allied military AI and the wars in general aren't the best parts of this game. In my opinion, it's better to build your own wars.

In any case, here are some screenshots. After Joffrey, I may post it, but it will involve sorting through hundreds of screenshots of the fighting haha.

Cause we got the fire, fire, fire, fire, yeah we got the fire, fire, fire.

And we gonna let it burn, burn, burn, burn!

The Mad King goes all Roose Bolton on this chick lol.

If you win the war with Rhaegar (or win as Aerys II and use the console to switch to Rhaegar huehue), you are rewarded with the RLJ event chain. Of course, I chose what Rhaegar would have chosen: divorcing Elia and making Lyanna his queen.

You also get a different event chain if you win as Eddard Stark (the events that happened in the novels).

CK Post V: Joffrey Part III

WARNING: The net is dark and full of spoilers. Read at your own risk.

Without further ado, Part III begins!

Where we left off.

Well that ended quickly. Also notice that Joffrey put his armor and weapons on for the upcoming battle: he is vain enough to think that his brilliant leadership wins his wars, and not his overwhelming numbers and 20+ martial generals.

The mummer's dragon is here! Unfortunately, he came after the War of the Five Kings was already over, so I doubt he will be too successful against Joffrey's armies.

Joffrey stands at the head of 28K soldiers (remember that my puppet lords in the Riverlands and Stormlands are providing the allied armies, not the Tullies or Baratheons) against the 11K of Aegon. This won't be pretty for our silver-haired friend.

Died in combat against Aegon's armies. Quite a shame. The Hound had served well. In any case, the war ended after a single battle.

Joffrey rolled a fairly high Intrigue score (I had Cersei educate him and he got a bit lucky to roll Elusive Shadow), that serves as a good defense against plots. Good thing too, Joffrey frequently ends up dead fairly quickly because a lot of people want him in the seven hells.

Seriously fk off, Iron Bank. I just spent a crapton of money paying off the Lannisters, Tyrells, and High Septon. Littlefinger really fked me good with all those loans.

Case in point.

He may not have a handle on the kingdom's finances, but he sure has a handle on Sansa. It must take some doing to seduce a woman who hates you after you murdered her family and tormented her endlessly.

It's a girl!

And now I have an excuse to torment our fine Lady Catelyn!

HUEHUEHUE

Aside from torturing the women of his fallen enemies, Joffrey also enjoys peacetime by seducing his various courtiers.

With predictable results.

We'll end here, with the Reach continuing to mount threats against us, backed by a cabal of pissed off Braavosi bankers.

CK Post IV: A few screens

Super busy with work atm, but I had time to do the Balon Greyjoy Crowned Stag playthrough that I said I was going to do.

However, that's where the problem begins: I have over 200 screenshots of that playthrough in no particular order, because Ironborn games tend to be war-intensive, and I had to replay some of the wars a few times (specifically, the war for independence, and the much harder war to keep my independence). My general policy is that I allow myself unlimited replays to test out war strategies, but will not reload otherwise.

Also I need to finish the Joffrey playthrough, I think that should be up in a few days, I have all the screens sitting around on my computer.

But I did promise something, so here goes.

The battle that won the First War of Ironborn Independence. Basically, the rule of the game is that if you completely smash the enemy army, you get a massive warscore boost. However, the game only checks what % of the enemy army you smash, not the exact number. So what Rodrik did was that he waited for the Reach and Throne forces to wear each other down, then when the Throne was down to around 8K men, he went hunting for them in the Reach and slaughtered them, leading to...

Freedom!

The Reach likes to start megawars, it seems. It started 2 while Balon was alive, and the 3rd during Rodrik's reign. The first two were ill-fated. In the last one, they got the Stormlands on their side, and were actually winning for a time, but somehow managed to lose to the Iron Throne.

Balon valiantly led his forces against the armies of the Iron Throne for over 4 years before the war came to an end.

The terms of Allard Baratheon's surrender to the Balon Greyjoy II. Notice that he has blond hair (and the Suspected Bastard Trait IIRC), he's most likely a creation of Jaime and Cersei.

Balon Greyjoy's grandson, after he fought the Second War of Ironborn Independence against a resurgent Iron Throne determined to take back the lands it used to possess, 10 years after it lost it. I spent over 2K gold on mercenaries that fight.

Future Playthrough Plans

So I've been mostly playing unmodded CK2 lately, but here were some future ideas I had for future playthroughs I would post.

1) Balon Greyjoy - A Crowned Stag.
 So essentially, the Ironborn battle plan revolves around waiting for a megawar to break out, then declaring yourself independent. It's pretty easy in Robert's Rebellion, Clash of Kings, and Blackfyre Rebellion, where the game basically hands you independence due to a massive civil war in Westeros. But as Balon would say, "No man gives me a crown. I pay the iron price. I will take my crown, as Urron Redhand did 5,000 years ago." And so we shall wait for Westeros to light itself on fire (this will also be a fun way to spectate the game). We may lie dormant for several decades, but always remember, what is dead may never die!

Once we are independent, we shall adhere to the house rule that we may not expand our territory beyond the Iron Islands (unless I get really bored, then we'll invade the North or something I guess), the game becomes too easy otherwise. Instead, we shall pay the Iron Price to procure the finest swords and concubines in Westeros!

2) Random French Count --> Emperor - The Old Gods
Starting in France is a bit harder than Ireland (because you're a vassal rather than fully independent), but still fairly straightforward. This will also be a nice tutorial for people getting into CK2. Let's build a new French Empire!

3) Random Rajastani Count --> Emperor - The Old Gods / Stanford Bridge
I think Rajastan is the hardest region in the game to play in, tbh. It's similar to Byzantium in that you are constantly fighting wars against the Muslim Sultanates. But the problem is that the other Indian kingdoms are also fighting against you. On the plus side, you tend to have lower crown authority, so you can go to war more easily.

But a huge problem is that India experiences the game's first horde, when the Ghaznavids invade. This will be especially bad for us, because as a Count working his way to the top, we are destabilizing Rajastan immensely, meaning we will provide less opposition to Ghazni when he rolls around.

4) Gregorios Spartenos - The Old Gods
A random, independent Greek Orthodox Count in Italy. What makes it even worse is that you're in the de jure area of Byzantium, meaning they have free CBs on your land.

Course, you could take the easy road and swear fealty to the Byzantine Empire, and work your way to the top from there. But as Arthur Dayne would say, "our knees do not bend easily." There is something romantic about remaining a defiant, independent king in a world where caliphs and emperors want you dead or subjugated.

But can it be done?

5) Robb Stark
Because let's be honest, who doesn't like the idea of ahistorical success? We all played Robb Stark the first time we played GoT, and so this playthrough is like a homecoming of sorts.

CK Post III: Joffrey Part II

WARNING: The net is dark and full of spoilers. Read at your own risk.

So here's part 2!

Joffrey appropriates the entire Riverlands, and sentences Edmure Tully to death by beheading. I chose this option as it makes the most sense given Joffrey's character, In the game, you accrue Tyranny Points for doing this, though. Better to throw him in the dungeon and revoke his highest title, but let's be honest, Joffrey would gladly torture Edmure to death for the crime of his rebellion,

It would have been nice to kill Robb, but killing Brandon (and seizing his assets) will do. After Joffrey beheads him, he makes Sansa kiss his head, and puts it on a pole next to Eddard's.

Stannis has been soundly defeated, and names terms of his surrender to the rightful king.

Joffrey cannot kill Stannis, because that would accrue the kinslayer malus. Instead, the King demands forfeiture of Stannis' primary title, and plans to throw Stannis in the dungeon until he dies in the oubliette.

Joffrey grants the North to Galbart Glover, who has the Content trait, meaning he will make a loyal vassal.

Same reason I grant the Riverlands to Lymond Goodbrook.

And the Stormlands to Harlan Wagstaff.

Well, there goes the plan of making him rot to death in the oubliette.

I select my "uncle" (and father) Jaime to take down Stannis' champion.

Wot.

In any case, I let Stannis go. I cannot gain any more Tyranny points, nor can I kill him.

The newest member of the Kingsguard. I appoint Sandor Clegane to Lord Commander.

Well, this is trouble. The Reach is the strongest region in the game, and the Iron Bank is granting them an additional army of 10K sellswords. Joffrey, who has just come of age, has his work cut out for him it seems.

In any case, we'll end here for now. A glimpse of the future...

(As a final note, I think I lost a few screenshots, so I'll just say it here: Littlefinger and Varys borrowed exorbitant sums of money from the Tyrells and the High Septon. I'm not sure what they did with it tbh, because I didn't see any sellswords hired or castles built or whatever. I've never seen them borrow and possibly embezzle this much before. In any case, serviced all those debts, but I'll be honest: the only way I could service the Iron Bank debt was getting lucky and having Daenerys die, and her wealth pass to me as her only living heir. I think it's fair enough, I got super unlucky with my regents this game).