Crusader Kings II

Crusader Kings II

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Video: How to Play Crusader Kings 2 (No Nonsense Guide)
By Akfiz
This no nonsense tutorial will show you how to play Cursader Kings 2. I started playing with the Duchy (or Petty Kingdom in Ireland) of Mumu in 1066. This is the recommended start for learning how to play Crusader Kings 2.

In this tutorial I went from a Duke to the King of Ireland. This tutorial used no DLCs, it was only the free to play version of Crusader Kings 2 from Steam.

I only convered the basics, this is not everything that is to the whole game, but hopefully that's enough to get you started.
   
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Starting Tutorial With Mumu in Ireland (1066)
I hope the usefulness of information makes up for the lack of quality. The other 2 videos have much better quality I promise.
Timecodes:
0:00 - Proof of Competence
0:30 - Intro
1:25 - When You Begin a Game
5:40 - What Every Button Does
19:20 - Starting the Game
20:10 - Forming Alliances
21:10 - How to Conquer Land
24:10 - Army Talk
27:45 - How to Get the Rest of Ireland
28:45 - How to Revoke Vassal Titles
35:35 - How to Take Land with a Claimant
40:20 - Second Son on Gravelkind Succession
42:25 - Taking Land with Fabricated Claim
44:10 - Bad Duel Event
45:10 - Reforming Old Alliances as the Son
49:50 - How to Become King of Ireland
52:00 - Create a Duchy and Another De Jure War
56:55 - Vassal Inheretance
57:30 - Who to Attack Next?
58:00 - Important Information on Vassal Claimants
59:30 - Conquering 1 More Region
1:01:10 - What to do with Money
1:02:15 - Again Conquering 1 More Region
1:07:10 - Retaking Land Lost to Inheretance
1:10:00 - How to Get More Piety
1:14:15 - Creating the Kingdom of Ireland
1:15:00 - Offer Vassalzation
1:16:05 - Assign Dukes Under You
1:16:35 - Crown Authority
1:17:55 - Inheretance
1:19:10 - Recommended Starter Kingdoms
1:20:20 - Usurp Title
1:21:30 - How to Deal with Dangerous Factions
1:24:35 - Elective Succession
1:25:05 - Fix Factions with Transfer Vassalage
1:26:00 - Heresy
1:26:15 - Fix Your Internal Conflict Before Expanding
1:26:35 - Outro

As a short reminder

When you start the game:
- Council missions
- Marriage & alliances
- Ambition
- Then check if you can put your succession law on ultimogeniture and realm laws on as much centralization as possible and medium crown authority.

Afterwards, look for the ways you can take land:
- De jure claim
- Personal claim (fabricate claim from counselor or inhereted)
- Support the claim of one of your vassals
- Or religious wars.
Starting with a Small Kingdom & Bad RNG (Wallachia in 1310)
Timecodes:
0:00 - Intro
1:30 - Things I Forgot to Mention
5:25 - Goal for Better Army
5:50 - Wards
7:05 - The Starting Thing
8:45 - Children Marriage
10:45 - Claimants
12:40 - Begin the Game
15:00 - Request Region
20:00 - Heresy Begins
27:00 - Very Low Prestige
31:40 - Victorious Crusaders in Egypt
32:30 - Pilgrimage
33:50 - Still Trying to get Prestige
37:20 - Pagan Converted to Christianity
38:30 - Moldavia Formed
41:50 - Seeking New Alliances
43:20 - Attacking Oltenia
49:00 - Still Seeking Prestige
49:45 - Wrong Type of Holding
50:40 - New Alliance with Naples
51:40 - Still Wanting Prestige
56:00 - Alliance with Kiev
57:50 - The Claimant

Playing as the King of Wallachia in 1310. Having a really bad RNG but eventually rising back up. Basically, this game was Murphy's Law, everything that could went bad went bad. I think this video is better than a video where everything worked great, because not everything works great in Crusader Kings 2, and that's part of the game.

The video ended right after I declared war on Transylvania. After I took that county from Transylvania I had enough money & prestige to revoke the titles of my other counts in Muntenia and take their territories myself. Then I gave the Duchy of Oltenia to the vassal who liked me so the Count of Oltenia who hated me became his vassal instead, so I had only 1 vassal with 100 opinon of me. Then I went for ultimogeniture. And Kiev now wanted to be my ally.

So with 3 great allies meaning a lot of support. And owning the 4 counties inside my capital duchy leading me to have 5.600 troops. I was ready to take on Moldavia on a De Jure war. The crysis has ended.

Unfortunately, the video ended right when I declare war on Translyvania, right when I started to rise back up. But it's still a great video about survival in bad moments in Crusader Kings 2. Because Crusader Kings 2 is all about the RNG
Expanding after Consolidating my Kingdom (Wallachia in 1310)
Timecodes:
0:00 - Intro
1:40 - Where We Are Today
2:40 - War on Moldavia
8:55 - Revoke Recently Conquered Land
9:55 - Searching New Targets
10:40 - Religious War for Iasi
14:45 - Assigning Land to New Vassals
17:20 - War with Transylvania & Truce-breaker
21:10 - Prestige & Land Redistribution
25:40 - Seeking Claimants
26:40 - Waiting for Enough Prestige for Moldavia
27:55 - War with Hungary
31:30 - Contemplating a Two-Way War
33:20 - Second War with Moldavia
36:15 - A Really Great Trick
37:25 - War with Galati, Chilia and Belgorod
42:30 - Revoke Vassals and Revolt
44:25 - Revolt
45:00 - Ruler Dies And New Ruler Settings
47:20 - Regent Problems
47:45 - Second War on Transylvania
50:50 - Just Wait Until I'm 16
53:10 - Marriage and Rekindle Old Alliances
55:00 - Resume Revoke War on Galati, Chilia and Belgorod
57:40 - Land Redistribution To Vassals
1:00:00 - Internal Affairs & Next Target Seeking
1:02:30 - Take Bacau
1:03:50 - Transfer Vassalage
1:04:30 - Looking at Hungary
1:07:30 - Talking About Moving Capital
1:08:20 - Looking at Galicia
1:09:20 - Looking Again at Hungary
1:09:55 - Second War with Hungary
1:19:40 - Getting Some Money from Ransom
1:20:05 - Intervene in Bosnia

This is the second and last part from my playthrough with Wallachia. Although I do explain things as I'm playing the game, this is not a tutorial as everything needed to have a good basic understanding of the game was already explained in the videos with Mumu and Wallachia part 1.

I began from where I left off, going through the bad RNG and then consolidating my kingdom, and with a kingdom consolidated and alliances I was able to take down much stronger opponenets. Kingdom consolidated is: good army, stability so I won't have internal conflicts, basically either my direct vassals all like me enough to not want to revolt, or they are to weak to revolt even if they would want to. Too weak compared to my personal levies strength.

In this video I took all of Moldavia, while making sure that the regions I take remain stable parts of my realm. I took Transylvania and a bit of Temes. The video didn't end when I wanted it to end, but there wasn't much I was about to do afterwards. In the final sequence I was showing it's important to have counties of your own religion and culture so that the local population won't revolt. For religion you send the priest, with culture you can't do anything but wait it out. They only thing I wanted to do in the video and didn't get to, was after I won the war in Bosnia and was finally at peace, to move the capital to Campulung, but I already explained in the previous video and this video how to do it and why I wanted to do it so it's not much lost.
Ending
You only need the first video with Mumu to learn how to play the game. The other 2 videos are just extras.

I know it's 1 hour and unedited, but it pretty much explains everything yo need to know to have a basic understanding of the game.

In the 2nd videos I explained a few things I forgot to mention in my Mumu video, they are useful but not essential. And in my 3rd video I continued after I got over the crysis & bad RNG from the 2nd video.

I was originally only planning on 2 videos but wanted to show how I actually get to the top rather than just say "ok, now I'm good and can conquer pretty much everyone around me" after the 2nd video.

Good luck!