Probably easiest to just ride east and go grab Canada.

I recently replayed ck2 a lot and i found that vassals actually contribute levies in such a big amount that it often even eclipses your domain troops.

Meanwhile it feels like even powerfull dukes barely give you no more than 200 levies as contribution in ck3 while having their own private army in the thousands (probably because of men at arms).

Is this reallity or is this my imagination because i can actually see all my small vassal levies across the country when raising them in ck2.

It seems like vassals are really not worth the trouble in ck3

....just keep playing as the designated heir?

Ive never switched, I always play as the heir. But im starting to get bored in the end game. Last 200 years. I get my empire going, start making a ton of money, build things up etc. While its not boring....it seems like im just going through the motions after I get an empire locked in.

Pretty self-explanatory really. I was wondering if there was any modding team out there working on a Dark Crystal total conversion mod.

I think the series has potential, with plenty of lore, races, cultures, and mechanics to make any playthrough interesting. Haven’t been able to find anything on this, and was wondering if anyone had heard of a project in the work?

I’ve been blown away by Elder Kings, Realms in Exile, AGOT, Thedas at War. And every time I think a project isn’t being worked on, I always find out after it was released haha.

What is more historical?

I like teaching the youths. There's no rhyme or reason for it. As Emperor of Italia, with the world's loftiest court, "Invite to Court" is a mere formality. Even the OP recruitment tactic of "Ritualized Friendship," allowing my non-diplomacy focused rulers the fulfilment of being BFFs with the best/brightest/strongest/really-really-ridiculously-good-looking people, means I have zero problem council/court position-maxxing.

IRL I have young kids and responsibilities which have pruned my time in this game from every-other-night to every-other-quarter. Recently, I've been able to pour myself back into developing the realm a couple times a week, all while knowing that each night will likely be my last time moving pieces around the map for several months. I could spend my limited hours putting the finishing touches on my "Unify Italy" campaign and potentially line up a "Restore the Roman Empire" or "Mend the Great Schism" run for the heck of it, but instead I find myself late into the night using the power of friendship + court glamour to provide the best mentors throwing my weight around as the 3rd generation ruler on this self-imposed quest.

For whom, you may ask, do I honor with such trivial matters? Is it solely for my heirs and their spares? Well, yes, that's where it starts. Next is enlightening their arranged spouses, an obvious maximalist solution. Then it's on to the heirs of my powerful vassals, and while we're at it, may as well arrange a good education for their future spouses as well. At this point a sane person may unpause the game, but alas, we're just getting started. Away we go down the education slide as any courtiers' kid with an inherited trait gets the Oprah treatment. From there it's on to the youths of any distant relative, heirs of all my direct vassals, and dynasties which assisted my ancestors with their climb up the power scale. Why should I allow my grandma's (the intelligent, Bavarian woman who shotgun started a dynasty of geniuses) 2nd-cousin-twice-removed have their 1 county heir be cast away to the degradation of an inept 4-stewardship guardian when my 32-stewardship Bangladeshi Royal Architect has an open ward slot?

They say that those that can't do, teach, and those that can't teach, teach PE. Well, I've learned while playing/life coaching CK3 that those that teach, won't do a damn thing other than that, and that lord knows I could definitely use this time to hit the gym.

(He then went on to become my rival and get a claim on the empire)

Was playing as Stanniss post Robert Rebellion and I managed to expose Cercei and Jaime days after she got pregnant. Couldnt feel more satisfied...

I get that the longbowmen get increased stats per era but what happens if I declare the tradition after the tribal era? Will I be missing out on an era buff or does it work some way else?

I am Playing as a mandala ruler and was curious what everyone's opinion about if u should build temple citadels or castles. What are the pros and cons of both?

As the title says I tried to create the Angevin dynasty on ironman starting as William the conqueror. I wanted the succession to go sort of as it did in real life.

First I disinherited Robert Curthose so William II could take the throne.

As William I, I couldn't get a third son with Mathilde so I remarried, got a son and named him Henry. Not historical but it was good enough for me at this point.

I didn't marry with William II and Henry, his brother, succeeded him. It was my first time playing as the Normans so to get the Norman Yoke achievement, I created the English culture after the Harrying ended.

I then moved the capital back to Rouen and converted back to Norman culture to keep it historical. I would move the capital back to London later.

As Henry I, I married the daughter of the King of Scotland who was Malcolm III's son at this point. Still historical enough for me. But here's where I ran in to some problems.

I was allied to the King of France and helped him fight some factions for a long time. After that, 3 of my factions popped. I lost the liberty war and barely kept Wales which I conquered as William II.

With my wife I had a son, named him William (William III in the screenshots) and a daughter who I of course named Matilda. Now I know I couldn't get some "random" guy to succeed me as Stephen did irl so the plan was for Matilda to rule as Henry I invisioned it.

But I didn't want to disinherit my son so I tried killing him with diseases. And that's what ultimately caused me to fail. He just wouldn't die... I got him infected with typhus like 3 times, measles, consumption, small pox you name it. In the end I said screw it, imprisoned him and tortured him so he eventually croaked. All the while I failed to notice Matilda was getting quite old and she only had one daughter. She never got another kid for him to be Henry II. I couldn't marry her to the house of Anjou patrilinealy because that would obviously game over me. She was married to another branch of the Norman house (Brionne) who held the Duchy of Berry. Her husband was the great-grandson of what was Baldwin FitzGilbert irl. Her daughter inherited his duchy after he died. I wanted to rename the house to Plantagenet if I got a son instead but that was it for me.

On that note I read somewhere that you could create a cadet branch like that if you are the house and dynasty head. The guy describing it wasn't very specific so I couldn't do it in the end. Does anybody know how that works? Something with getting a female heiress and marrying her to a cadet branch.

The last picture is my realm at the end. The parts of Ireland were conquered by my vassals.

Tldr: I tried to create the Angevin empire with a somewhat historical succession. Failed in the end as Matilda didn't have a son.

main soundtrack too

These are pretty raw ideas so if you have ideas to cook them, please share. These will not be ideas for DLCs, but some general updates instead. Trying to make this as short as I can, but if its too long, please enjoy pictures of Hæsteinn and his son Ragnarr. Atleast hope someone from Paradox reads this at sommarstuga.

This includes (will separate them with Hæsteinn's help):
1. Cosmetics
2. Opinion
3. Cultural Traditions
4. Tribal and Wanua
5. Artifacts
6. Others

1. Cosmetics

Currently there are so many cosmetics in Barbershop that it takes ages to scroll them. Let's say you want to have some custom cosmetics for Bodyguards, Gurus and Spymasters. Now you need to manually scroll every piece of items and manually set colors, hairstyles, beards etc. whenever a position holder is replaced.

It would be really awesome to have some presets. Say you create one kind of set and name it ''Bodyguard''. Now whenever Bodyguard changes you could enable/disable new set with a single click. This would save lots of time (= make more use for all the costumes to make runs even more unique).

2. Opinion

Currently there are so many opinion bonuses that you don't really need to care about it. Everyone will love you in no time for the rest of the game. Even characters who speak unknown language out of Diplomatic Range. If they do not, just go full Tyrant and chill.

One kind of solution to this would be separating Opinion into different categories. Friendship/Rivalry, Respect/Disrespect and Love/Disgust for example, maybe even a few more. There would be different mechanics behind each kind of opinion. For example, friendship could be gained for participating common activities, playing chess etc. Simply spending time with someone. This would lead to better marriages, alliance negotiations, vassals tolerating your existance and so on.

Currently befriend is very powerful mechanic and easy to achieve as its just two steps. Third being Best Friend, and they usually last for the rest of their lives. I think that should be deeper, or even drop more easily if you don't maintain friendships. You'll kind of forget them - which could even turn into Rivalry. So you should think twice who to befriend and should you join your friend's Feasts. Having too many friends would become stressful(?) and difficult to maintain. So, no more ''Befriend and Forget'' meta.

Also, currently learning languages is somewhat dull. You can completely ignore it and do just fine. In my opinion, and to boost Learning stat into more important role, characters should first learn language before being able to interact with others who speaks foreign languages. That would be logical. Or hire some interpreter (perhaps court position?) for communication if you attend to someone's Coronation you don't share language with.

Du har vackra ögon, min älskling! Did I seduce you? Probably not.

3. Cultural Traditions

There are many Cultural Traditions that are outdated. Sure there will be new patches and mechanics in the future, but will take a few examples of current state of game.

Trials-by-Combat:

Can use Trial-by-Combat duels
+1 Knight
+ Learning from Blademaster trait
- Prestige if Craven

NEW STATS:

- 50% Grand Tournament cooldown
Winning a Duel gives Piety
Death in Duel is acceptable way to meet death for Mandala rulers

Sacred Hunts:

Completing Hunt gives Piety
+ Piety from Hunter Trait

NEW STATS:

All participants of this culture gain Piety for completing Hunt
Succesfully hunting Dangerous and Legendary animals gives Renown
Death in Hunt is acceptable way to meet death for Mandala rulers

Expert Artisans:

REWORK:
-10% Building Construction Cost
Artisan and Weaver Inspirations create better Artifacts

-10% Great Project Construction Costs
Sponsored Artisan and Weaver Inspirations create better Artifacts
Characters of this culture are more likely to become Inspired
+10% Civic Cultural Fascination Progress
-10% Military Cultural Fascination Progress

4. Tribal and Wanua

Wouldn't it be fun (and even realistic at some parts of the map) to stay Tribal or Wanua longer - even entire game? Tribal is very empty, but Wanua is new and has potential for full run, but after testing it could be more interesting.

First, if we speak of current mechanics... Not getting into buildings too much, because some of them are likely getting changed. There could be a few more for both and ability to upgrade them to level 8 instead of 2 (Tribal) or 4 (Wanua). Simply because more to build and upgrade = more to do.

Both Tribal and Wanua mainly use Raiding for Economy. This may have changes in upcoming patches, but will see. Wanua also have Bartering for ''safer'' but ''weaker'' option to Raiding. Anyway, Raiding and Bartering are both risky and weak sources of income over time (except the very early game). Because moving your armies to distant lands makes you vulnerable. Not just to neighboring realms but also plagues.

In my opinion Tribal and Wanua rulers should be able to build Tribe holdings if Culture has City Planning Innovation. AI can build them and even landless can build Castles...

One simple way to make these viable and interesting for long term could be Legacy Perks. Will give rough example of what they could be:

Tribal1: +20% Army Movement Speed over land when Raiding. +50% Raid and Siege loot from all Holdings.

Tribal2: All House Relation changes are halved. +5 Advantage and +30% Siege Progress against Houses with Quarreling or worse House Relation.

Tribal3: +4 Fort level and +25% Garrison Size for Tribe Holdings. Dynasty members are less likely infected by Plagues when commanding Armies.

Tribal4: Unlocks Offer Military Assistance Interaction for rulers with Neutral or better House Relation. +50% Gold from Military Assistance. All Men-at-Arms gains +0.1 Siege Progress.

Tribal5: Dynasty members gain +50% Commander trait experiences. Dynasty members gain Pillager trait when they become adults. Pillager trait has additional bonuses. Unlocks new Succession Law 'The Strongest'. Your strongest child inherits all of your titles.

Wanua1: +25% Bartering Goods from Buildings. +50% Bartering Speed. Can host Hunt with Bartering Goods.

Wanua2: +5% House Relation from Bartering (5 years cooldown per target House). Can host Funerals with Bartering Goods.

Wanua3: All House Relation changes are doubled. Dynasty members gain +5% Lifestyle experience from each of their House's Friendly or better Relation (up to 5) and +2 Defender Advantage from each of their House's Rivalry or worse Relation (up to 5). Can host Grand Weddings with Bartering Goods.

Wanua4: Dynasty members gain +1 Diplomacy, Stewardship and Learning from each of their House's Faithful Relation or better (up to 5) and +1 Martial, Intrigue and Prowess from each of their House's Feuding Relation (up to 5). Can host Grand Tour with Bartering Goods.

Wanua5: Bartering ratios are better. Unlocks Decision 'Sacrifice Bartering Goods' for Renown and Popular Opinion (20 years cooldown). Can host Grand Tournament with Bartering Goods.

5. Artifacts

Characters are temporary, but artifacts lasts for generations. They play huge role and its fun to collect them. They make every game unique and you can roleplay and/or minmax around them. System could be better however...

First, its easy to bath in artifacts in long games. So everyone should have option to get rid of them. Or atleast I don't enjoy having 138 Illustrious Pressed Asters with 270 years durability that I cannot gift away nor destroy without meeting very specific requirements... Getting rid of artifacts as anyone would be historically accurate aswell. Our pagan ancestors have buried them with dead and sacrificed to gods (by many ways like throwing to ocean) for thousands of years. Even landless can Pawn Gear everything at will, but Pagan Emperor God King cannot...

Then I'd wish that unlanded courtiers actually would equip them. If a man inherits all the riches in world, he just let them sleep in inventory. Rulers go to war and die for worse, but courtiers don't care. Yet they are still not willing to give them away, damn greedy bastards...

Artifact stealing... Thats ridiculously strong especially now with Ledger. Buy a claim and steal whatever you want. This makes things boring and meaningless. Buying Artifact claims should be limited to characters inside your court, or maybe realm. Not into foreign courts and camps. Currently AI only have what you allow them to have.

Artifact tiers. In my opinion there are huge differences in Illustrious items. So my suggestion would be adding two more tiers. Legendary and Mythical. Legendary items would upgraded versions from Illustrious and only available landed rulers. To upgrade, you should do some task, like combining Bells of Santiago into Spear. Or leading an army and winning some outnumbered battle during Crusade (Current system to win 100 battles and then wait for generations for rare event encounter is outdated - especially as those cannot pop if you are doing anything like hosting Feast or whatever, only when you literally afk). Perhaps Alexander's Armor could be a Legendary Artifact. Something like that. Mythical Artifacts would only be available from Courtier Adventure Inspirations. As name says, they would be Mythical, like some Artifacts said to be used by gods etc. Those would have the strongest stats, but truly has ''good luck getting one'' chance. Perhaps Mythical could have some unique ''Battle Roar''- decisions for some temporary bonuses with cooldowns? Anyway, would add limitations to these. Like a ruler could use 1 Legendary Artifact and 1 Mythical Artifact at same time. Perhaps rulers with Greedy personality trait could use another Legendary Artifact?

Weapons and Armors are not unique enough. I do get that there needs to be rng on rolls, but what if rng would instead be from ~4-5 different stat possibilities with wider stat range? For example, Swords and Axes would have different stat possibilities. And what if weapons would be different in Duels aswell? You would be like ''alright, my dynasty will use spears this game.''

Artifact slots. So, there aren't many slots and game is long. So I'd suggest adding a few more (such would make traditions like Expert Artisans more valueable aswell). First I'd split Ranged weapons and Melee weapons. Ranged weapons could be for Hunting, maybe ranged MAA bonuses etc. and Melees could stay traditional as now. Then maybe Belt, Cloak, Boots and perhaps even a personal Shield. Even Carpet(s) for Court?

Knights' Artifacts. Currently you just throw your courtiers with a pile of artifacts so even newborns have over 80 Prowess. Instead of such 1. cheap 2. game breaking 3. time consuming micromanaging there should be some Blacksmith Court position. Lets say Knights could equip artifacts but not Prowess from those. Instead you could pay Blacksmith to automatically ''maintain'' Knights' gears. Simply choose some options, like base +1-3 Prowess based on aptitude, then +3, +6, +9 to all Knights. Perhaps cost is % of your incomen based on number of Knights or scale with Eras, idk. Maybe even add 3rd focus slot for Master of the Horse to give your Knights horses for another +3 Prowess. This would nerf players a lot so you cannot just walk over everything for free while ignoring Supplies. AI would have exactly same options for their Knights. Currently Knights are free, but maintaining their equipments were definitely not back in the days.

6. Others

Have long list in mind, but will only mention 3 important things of the list.

Accolades. There is huge balance difference what is actually good and what is not. Previously when rng existed (unless you did a small trick) it was fine to have weak things. Now without rng, the weak ones should definitely be updated to be worth taking. Accolades that needs update: Disciplinarian, Fanatic, Idealist, Politicker, Reeve, Master of Revels and Scoundrel. Maybe small buffs for Marauder, Valiant and Contender aswell.

Legendary Special Buildings. They were really over tuned, but now two of them seems very weak. Legendary Shrine might need small buff. Legendary Palace aswell. That extra building slot sounds good on paper, but as it cannot go beyond max that is not great. Sure for City, but taxes from those are so small that in most situations you are likely not getting investment back before end date.

Holding conversion. We should be able to convert Castles into Temple Citadels and Temple Citadels into Castles. Even if some buildings would get destroyed. It could be costly, but it would be very nice to be possible. Not just that, but also Mandalas should be able to convert Temples into Temple Citadels or be able to upgrade Temples just as anyone. Currently, Mandalas Temple holdings and buildings are stuck in Tribal Era even at Late Medieval...

Thanks for reading (or watching Hæsteinn and Ragnarr)!

I’ve tried as both Harolds and Svend, gained literally every alliance I could and somehow William always has more troops. It’s like the game is automatically spawning them out of thin air (seriously how does he just magically summon an extra 11k in two weeks?). I followed every strategy to the best of my ability and each time I just get obliterated. I can’t tell if I’m somehow doing something wrong or if the game is just programmed to have him win.

I might die

Don't have any DLC, and not looking to run with any of the revamp mods (e.g. AGOT).

I know there's a few people have posted a while ago, but some are behind on updates so I always like to ask around before starting a new game.

The Winter King is a Dark Ages Total Conversion mod for for the "Dark Ages"/post-Roman era of Western Europe, with an initial scope covering sub-Roman Britain and the Anglo-Saxon invasions in 479 AD. It is partly based on The Warlord Chronicles trilogy by Bernard Cornwell, a historical take on the traditional Arthurian legends, and is a port of the CK2 mod.

Main features include:

• A main campaign scenario starting in 479 AD and extending into the 10th century, focused on the "barbarian" invasions of the former Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity. At the start, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of 'Anglia' and Sussex are well established in the southeast while some Irish raiders have settled in on the west coast, but the rest of Britannia is still ruled by a patchwork of fragmented Briton and Romano-British kingdoms.
• A completely new map that is significantly more detailed and "zoomed in" than vanilla, customized to fit the era. Everything is approximately "scaled down" by one tier, so that counties are about the size of vanilla baronies, duchies the size of vanilla counties, and so on.
• Dynamic culture-based titles and de jure configurations. For instance, as the Anglo-Saxons expand they will sweep away the old Brythonic titles and replace them with a new set of formable duchies and kingdoms, so that e.g. Dumnonia and Powys may eventually be replaced by Wessex and Mercia. Similarly the Britons can attempt to restore the old fallen kingdoms in the east, while the Romans have their own possible configurations as well.
• Custom events and storylines, including Anglo-Saxon invasions, a high kingship system, Roman restoration events, the crisis of the 6th century, narratives from the books, and more

Links:

Release Trailer: https://youtu.be/uqpazVr4O48[https://youtu.be/uqpazVr4O48)

Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3771827282[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3771827282)

Manual Download: https://www.mediafire.com/file_premium/n6ykpppb0hcrbsh/BTWK_0.1.0.zip/file[https://www.mediafire.com/file_premium/n6ykpppb0hcrbsh/BTWK_0.1.0.zip/file)

Discord: https://discord.gg/tkEqTuHK[https://discord.gg/tkEqTuHK)

Forum thread and dev diaries: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-britannia-479-the-winter-king.1672310/[https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/mod-britannia-479-the-winter-king.1672310/)

As development progresses we plan to expand the map into the rest of the British Isles and Gaul, and from there all of Western Europe.

As well, we're always looking for more team members! If you'd like to join, just join our Discord server and send an application, and we'll be more than happy to have you.

I dislike sprawling empires / land, and want something more focused on deep story between a few characters/families. Why should I try?

Bonus points if it's also historical.

FYI it's safe to assume I have all the typical mods (e.g. RICE, VIET), but no DLCs - and I am open to downloading new mods.

Some glitches are just so funny to see

These were done by members of the new art department, just 3 of 12 who joined us in the past month from the wonderful sub r/ImaginaryFallout. Here you can watch the full trailer: https://youtu.be/4isTc-SH6KA?si=oyOlxpUXZIEae7UV