7 Great Tips to Improve at Crusader Kings 2 🔴 CK2 Tips & Tricks Strategy Guide

In this Tips & Tricks strategy video, I teach you 7 of the best strategies I've used to succeed in Crusader Kings 2 with dlc in 2018! If you have any tips you want to share, be sure to let me know in the comment section down below! Enjoy!

~Stay in Touch!~

#CK2 #CrusaderKings2

"Less developed part of the world"
*zooms to Ireland*

[Mrjohnnycache]

Use the character finder to always get a great council. Also great for finding future wives with genetic traits.

[Becka_Harper]

I know I’m late to this but...

To conquer counties you have a claim to without wrecking the county and losing it’s taxes while it rebuilds simply take war focus, antagonise the current ruler until you can duel him and duel for a strong claim. If you win you take everything without a wasteful war. Start with the territory of the ruler with the weakest personal combat score and work upwards; by the time you’re reaching the harder duellists you should have the skill to win. This is also a quick cheap 50 prestige.

[marinary]

Tip #8: actually go Seduction focus all the time
Tip #9: Always murder children

[delinard]

#9 Have At least one Duke-Bishop so you can fit a "Powerfull vassal" as court chapelin, he will also be very loyal
#10 When getting the event to build a hedge garden, don't take any decisions that require money, you will be rewarded with same things without spending any money.
#11 Don't build a great tower, not worth it.
#12 Assaign every honorary title to every vassal(especily barons) so they get more money out of it.
#13 The success of trade expedition depends on your relations with the ruler you visit, so you don't have to buy him the best gift if he arleady likes you.
#14 Rulership focus sucks becose it gives you stressed trait way too often
#15 War focus isn't bad but Hunter is much better
#16 Bennedict order is underrated and allows you to add one of your virtues to your sons or remove one of their sins, you will also get an event to steal an artifact like "Finger of Jesus" or something like that, a powerfull item that dosen't need to be equiped
#17 When playing encountering an event where a pilgrim comes and needs a home, he might be the actaul death! So check him if he has game master trait, if he does then it's confirmed that you are being visited by death to challenge you to chess.You have higher chances to win that chess game if you let him stay at court or buy him a room in tavern, also picking black peaces will improve chances too. Rest is luck but you arleady have an upperhand.
#18 "Raise Tribal Armies" will be removed in Holy Fury and replaced by "Tribal Retinues" according to the devs.
#19 Don't land people as counts in your capital duchy if you are King/Emperor.
#20 Don't marry your dauthers for prestige(unless you are a merchant republic), instead marry them either for a strong ally or martinel marrige to expand your dynasty.
#21 DEUS VULT!

[belisarius]

And establish vassal merchant republic.

[tighnarix]

It’s better to study tech in a county next to Constantinople, the counties next to it usually have really good tech as is and there is the massive bonus that you won’t be caught ever four months.

[Fallout]

2:40 to see total troops a top liege there is a better way. On the character screen click on the button below the family tree (Hotkey button: 9). On this window there's an icon next to the liege for troops. Hover over that and it will tell you how many troops they can raise in total including all their vassals.

[tyronewifestealer]

I can completely agree with the tribe tip. I played as sigurd snake in the eye once and in a hundred years my realm was considered a major threat. A few countries made a coalition to oust me. Together they had about 18000 troops while I had 12000. Instead of loosing, I called my vassals that numbered to a whopping 10000 troops. Annihilation.

[aloneintherain]

After watching a couple of your ck2 tutorials, I could not go back to watching anyone else. Clearly spoken, great explanations without going overboard, and actual useful information. Thanks for these videos man.

[Calintares]

Apparently it's slightly better to have your spymaster in Thrace instead of Constantinople, it has almost as high technology, but it's less likely that your spymaster will be discovered while there since emperors of Byzantium tend to plant his advisors in Constantinople

[thunderbagel]

I've been playing for about 200 hours and I didn't know any of these. Thank you!

[ericlanglois]

The following is meant as a guide to make things easier, not stuff you absolutely must do in order to be successful:

I typically start the game by putting my spymaster on steal tech from Constantinople, put my Marshal, Steward and Priest on study tech on my capital holding and within a single lifetime my capital usually becomes the most technologically advanced county in the game... as catholic though it tends to be really annoying because the Priest usually becomes a heretic quite easily so make sure you have lots of high learning people in your court and a few spare intrigue people in case your spymaster gets caught.

Another thing I sometimes do is a power breeding program, basically I have my first character get 5 (or more) sons and each one is trained in a different sector (Diplomacy, Marshal, Stewardship, Intrigue and Theology) and I marry each of them with a woman with the highest level of that type I can get, then I keep that particular line of descendants focused on that in order to have a good backup for each position in case I need it. I also tend to try to make my marshal have plenty of children so I have a steady supply of competent commanders.

Always hold two duchies, the two duchies with the largest numbers of counties ideally. Total current holdings are not as important in a long-standing game since you can always work towards getting new holding slots via an event. One example is when I play in Germany I will usually try to get Alemania and Saxony as my duchies. As someone pointed out below, don't give any of those counties away. This overall gives you a great power base and plenty of castles, usually more than your limit allows you to hold even if your Steward family branch happens to be your main.

If you go over your holdings limit, give away your baronies to heretics and heathens so you can reclaim them later more easily when your stewardship improves.

Never land your dynasty members and keep very strict control over them and their whereabouts to avoid claimant issues.

Retinues are powerful but getting lots of troops this way requires high Military Org and a large empire, so don't bank on it becoming your main fighting force... unless you're Nomad in which case they literally are your fighting force.

In a large empire, I find it optimal to have 2 or 3 really powerful vassals and a bunch of weaker ones. That way you only ever need to keep 1 or 2 vassals happy, everyone else will avoid trying to antagonize you too much. One example is as the Roman Emperor I will usually combine all of modern day France into a single vassal and all of modern day Turkey into another, this makes a really powerful vassal on either side of my empire and I can keep both of them fairly happy thanks to all the vassal opinion bonuses you get for being Roman Emperor (+25 total if you managed to get the Blood of Alexander as well as the Roman Empire Restored bloodline and Augustus trait). As a different empire, it's just a bit more expensive.

Always try to max out your max number of Republic and Theocracy land ownership... Theocracies are surprisingly stable and will rarely revolt, especially in Catholicism with Free Investiture :) and Republics are a huge cash cow.

There's lots more but I think I've written enough lol

[Namburiadityasairam]

1) Always marry your relatives to keep the blood pure

[Jameman]

Always when playing as Byzantium, bump up city taxes and conquer and vassalise Venice. That way you can milk them for all the money they're worth(which in 50 years when most of the trading posts are built is a ton). Plus, with the extra honorary titles and the advisor council slots to cancel any opinion hits upon ruler change you can easily make a lot more money than normal earlier in the game. This is handy because you'll basically be wearing the Seljuks and Fatimids until you conquer them outright and countering the financial edge they get from the Silk Road with your own Mediterranean trade dominance will be of immense value.

[KenjiWatanabe]

#6 was one of the most important ones to teach new players. I had to remind my wife every now and then that she'd face much more troops than she'd expect while on other days I heard her yell "where the hell did these troops come from?!" hahaha!
Since Holy Fury this one tip became obsolete with the new tribal mechanics but it was very important nonetheless.

#7 I didn't know about that yet! I gotta try that out, thanks!

[AdamPersson]

If I'm not mistaken Holy Fury will fix one of the problems with tribals. Pretty sure you'll be able to see the number of troops his max is with his vassals.

But these other tips are good things to have in mind when playing. Easily forgotten things which makes life easier. Keep it up!

[unltd.]

The 2500 troop for prestige was removed in the latest patch I believe (or at least for Holy Fury but I think both) just fyi. Now tribals can use prestige to build retinue instead.

[chronovac]

#8 Always declare Holy War, it never goes wrong!

[cleanrag]

Not so sure about stacking castles in your capital. Yeah it will make a nice army, but those count towards your total holdings. Better to get one county per holding and pick up as many towns as you can get. Getting massive bank is way better.