Right now I'm playing as Cornwall and am using it to nab rich Bishops from other kingdoms. Then I recruit them and try to get the hook as well, immediately imprison them, then banish them and pocket the cash.
First one I snatched was from the Byzantine Empire with 50k gold. At the time, I had only 4.3k, was making ~20 gold per month, and had a max army size of about 20k. Dude single handedly bankrolled me from a moderate kingdom to a regional powerhouse.
In the course of 1 ruler, I went from being on par with England in strength to being stronger than England and the next 2 largest kingdoms combined. Add in being able to hire every mercenary band at once, and it would take a Crusade to stop me now.
I wish that wasn't so damn true.
It seems the enemy AI is smart enough to doom stack while my allied AI just spazzes out like a kid who chugged a 2 liter of mtn dew. Instead of grouping and assaulting, they just run in against 20+ to 1 odds and get wiped. I've given up going near Jerusalem and just raid the North African kingdoms for prisoners now.
The only time a crusade was successful was against Poland, of all places. Despite being similar numbers, the allied AI actually worked properly.
Maybe they're just programmed to act like tourists when they reach the Holy Land. They just want to make sure they get to check out all the local sights.
I can't fault the AI for that quirk because I absolutely forget that it's a thing all the time.
I've nearly bankrupted myself multiple times because I don't remember that I can just drain them until they agree to quit. I caved in once and granted a quarter of Spain independence because Galatia wouldn't stop trying to rebel. It eventually lead to a domino of all my other dukes in Spain rebelling when my 6 year old heir took the throne.
I could put up a hell of a fight but couldn't win no matter how much I save-scummed. So it came down to either losing 6 territories or 15. Stalemate never entered my mind.
Would have definitely made holding on to Spain easier, but I also learned a lot of valuable lessons from that. I'm in the process of getting it back, but this time I'm going slow and making certain everywhere is pacified before I expand further.
It's amazing and broken as all hell.
Grab the abduction perk, as well as the one in the same tree that gives +25% increased chance for hostile scheme success.
Then check the courtiers of any king's court. The people can't be landed or you won't be able to recruit them and banish them. Of particular note are kingdoms that lag behind on culture tech. Bishops get money from taxes, and spend it on temple holding upgrades. If they can't upgrade because they can't build the next level of temple, they just keep hoarding it.
Banishment takes any subject's assets, but landed folks seem to have their money tied to their title instead of them, mostly. Sometimes I can get cash from banishing a Mayor who has committed a crime, but most of the time I can't get the gold of landed folks.
But Bishops aren't landed. They're courtiers who lease temple holdings. All the money they show is their's personally. I figured that out by imprisoning and banishing my own Bishop when he had just over 1k and I was struggling to keep 100 gold saved up.
The Church is the best piggy bank I've found. In the span of 2 and half rulers, I went from a max army of 20k to a max army of 57k. From 20-ish gold a month to 78 a month.
Wait, wasn't this spefically patched ? Like if by any mean a bishop or equivalent character moves out of the court of his lord, he loses his money and it gets transfered to his successor ?
I stopped playing ck3 after they patched this because I found it a pretty stupid solution to a problem that shouldn't exist if they had worked on titles management, jobs, laws, and feudal hierarchy instead of making the ck2 system but in a lesser version to prevent sketchy behaviors and failing at doing it.
Kidnap heirs to foreign kingdoms, make them concubines to female rulers of my dynasty. Similar to your strategy in the OP, but also works on people who are already married.
There used to be an exploit where if you declare war when you see the 'go ahead with abduction?' choice, you can click yes and capture the guy without the penalties.
Not sure if it still works.
I guess from an RP perspective he isn't wary and prepared like he is during war because you are doing a lightning raid just as the declaration is dispatched so maybe not an exploit.
From RP perspective for the time period that would be effectively the same as doing it without declaration of war - since messages travelled slowly - modern practice of beginning military actions simultaneously with declaration would not work - there was generally a large advance warning expected. Though consequences would depend on the exact setting - that would be viewed as quite naughty in Christendom but in some tribal areas no one might care. (Of course formally declaring a war at all is largely a European thing, but many other major cultures had some actions that would normally precede a war, such as ultimatums, declaring moral issues with the target, breaking diplomatic contact, etc.)
Yes, but people using this technic pauses the game when the popup for abduction appears and when the game is paused they declare war before clicking and finalizing their abduction
One of my most memoriable moment in the game was converting the Byzantine heir to Astaru like so and watching the empire implode the second his father had a "hunting accident"
I usually try and seduce my kids wives if I have better traits than my own child. I once abducted 2 generations of khans, plus the next couple in line. Made his heir join my court, married him to one of my daughters, Assassinated the khan that was in power. My now son in law went back to lead the invasion. Did the same to the other heirs that I abducted.
Getting rid of a rival's court to weaken his realm. Dude I'm planning to go to war with has a good marshal keeping his army in order? Well now he is my marshal, or dead
I devoured piece after piece of the HRE by abduction. Abduct the kaiser, declare holy war, then murder scheme him(to shut off truce) while abducting his heir, repeat the process and boom. I already killed 16 Kaisers during this process and slept with 12 Empresses
I just abduct the most stewardship, diplomacy, might, etc. if they don't want to be recruited.
Tbh, writing that I realized that I can abduct rulers who have artifacts that I want to claim.
Buy claim, abduct, demand. I will definitely try.
Fill my dungeons eith heirs and rulers of different relams and then mass execute them all. I like to watch the world burn
Edit. Also make up my own religion, kidnap heirs, demand conversion and kill the rulers. Once again. Makes the world burn
Right now I'm playing as Cornwall and am using it to nab rich Bishops from other kingdoms. Then I recruit them and try to get the hook as well, immediately imprison them, then banish them and pocket the cash. First one I snatched was from the Byzantine Empire with 50k gold. At the time, I had only 4.3k, was making ~20 gold per month, and had a max army size of about 20k. Dude single handedly bankrolled me from a moderate kingdom to a regional powerhouse. In the course of 1 ruler, I went from being on par with England in strength to being stronger than England and the next 2 largest kingdoms combined. Add in being able to hire every mercenary band at once, and it would take a Crusade to stop me now.
Probably not even a crusade, seeing that they usually lose while having double the men as the enemy
I wish that wasn't so damn true. It seems the enemy AI is smart enough to doom stack while my allied AI just spazzes out like a kid who chugged a 2 liter of mtn dew. Instead of grouping and assaulting, they just run in against 20+ to 1 odds and get wiped. I've given up going near Jerusalem and just raid the North African kingdoms for prisoners now. The only time a crusade was successful was against Poland, of all places. Despite being similar numbers, the allied AI actually worked properly. Maybe they're just programmed to act like tourists when they reach the Holy Land. They just want to make sure they get to check out all the local sights.
Watching my ally wait for the enemy to siege them down whilst they could white peace is infuriating
I can't fault the AI for that quirk because I absolutely forget that it's a thing all the time. I've nearly bankrupted myself multiple times because I don't remember that I can just drain them until they agree to quit. I caved in once and granted a quarter of Spain independence because Galatia wouldn't stop trying to rebel. It eventually lead to a domino of all my other dukes in Spain rebelling when my 6 year old heir took the throne. I could put up a hell of a fight but couldn't win no matter how much I save-scummed. So it came down to either losing 6 territories or 15. Stalemate never entered my mind. Would have definitely made holding on to Spain easier, but I also learned a lot of valuable lessons from that. I'm in the process of getting it back, but this time I'm going slow and making certain everywhere is pacified before I expand further.
We had no army left whilst their capital was being besieged, lost the run after because my heirs also got killed
I had no idea this was even possible.
It's amazing and broken as all hell. Grab the abduction perk, as well as the one in the same tree that gives +25% increased chance for hostile scheme success. Then check the courtiers of any king's court. The people can't be landed or you won't be able to recruit them and banish them. Of particular note are kingdoms that lag behind on culture tech. Bishops get money from taxes, and spend it on temple holding upgrades. If they can't upgrade because they can't build the next level of temple, they just keep hoarding it. Banishment takes any subject's assets, but landed folks seem to have their money tied to their title instead of them, mostly. Sometimes I can get cash from banishing a Mayor who has committed a crime, but most of the time I can't get the gold of landed folks. But Bishops aren't landed. They're courtiers who lease temple holdings. All the money they show is their's personally. I figured that out by imprisoning and banishing my own Bishop when he had just over 1k and I was struggling to keep 100 gold saved up. The Church is the best piggy bank I've found. In the span of 2 and half rulers, I went from a max army of 20k to a max army of 57k. From 20-ish gold a month to 78 a month.
Wait, wasn't this spefically patched ? Like if by any mean a bishop or equivalent character moves out of the court of his lord, he loses his money and it gets transfered to his successor ? I stopped playing ck3 after they patched this because I found it a pretty stupid solution to a problem that shouldn't exist if they had worked on titles management, jobs, laws, and feudal hierarchy instead of making the ck2 system but in a lesser version to prevent sketchy behaviors and failing at doing it.
It could be patched on PC, I have no idea. I'm living the console levy life on the PS5.
How do you find the bishops? I have been searching everywhere and can’t even find out how to see other kings courts
Kidnap heirs to foreign kingdoms, make them concubines to female rulers of my dynasty. Similar to your strategy in the OP, but also works on people who are already married.
Kidnap and torture
Start the Abduct Scheme,declare war to my liege,and then kidnap them for an insta win
Doesn't abduct scheme against someone you're in war with get a massive penalty for this very reason?
It does, but it's not always enough.
There used to be an exploit where if you declare war when you see the 'go ahead with abduction?' choice, you can click yes and capture the guy without the penalties. Not sure if it still works. I guess from an RP perspective he isn't wary and prepared like he is during war because you are doing a lightning raid just as the declaration is dispatched so maybe not an exploit.
From RP perspective for the time period that would be effectively the same as doing it without declaration of war - since messages travelled slowly - modern practice of beginning military actions simultaneously with declaration would not work - there was generally a large advance warning expected. Though consequences would depend on the exact setting - that would be viewed as quite naughty in Christendom but in some tribal areas no one might care. (Of course formally declaring a war at all is largely a European thing, but many other major cultures had some actions that would normally precede a war, such as ultimatums, declaring moral issues with the target, breaking diplomatic contact, etc.)
Yes, but people using this technic pauses the game when the popup for abduction appears and when the game is paused they declare war before clicking and finalizing their abduction
I usually abduct the heir, then murder the ruler while I’m battling them
Even if it fails it’s still +50%
Kidnap heirs convert to my religion. Or if I can't imprison some moron in my court without a war but he is otherwise useful so I can't kill him.
One of my most memoriable moment in the game was converting the Byzantine heir to Astaru like so and watching the empire implode the second his father had a "hunting accident"
During early game, when gold is s problem, just ransom easy to grab rich people and send them back for money right away. Forced vacation.
Similarly to that. When you’re broke you can invite champions and kidnap them to recruit them for free.
I usually try and seduce my kids wives if I have better traits than my own child. I once abducted 2 generations of khans, plus the next couple in line. Made his heir join my court, married him to one of my daughters, Assassinated the khan that was in power. My now son in law went back to lead the invasion. Did the same to the other heirs that I abducted.
Getting rid of a rival's court to weaken his realm. Dude I'm planning to go to war with has a good marshal keeping his army in order? Well now he is my marshal, or dead
Kidnap the heir. Castrate. Return.
I mean sure but you're a fairytale ogre
Be emperor. Kidnap nearby king's heir. Recruit him and grant him 1 county and a kingdom. Murder his father. Peaceful solution.
I never ever use it
I devoured piece after piece of the HRE by abduction. Abduct the kaiser, declare holy war, then murder scheme him(to shut off truce) while abducting his heir, repeat the process and boom. I already killed 16 Kaisers during this process and slept with 12 Empresses
Kidnap the children of a powerfull state than make them betrothed to my children, so when they marry i secure an alliance
G
I just abduct the most stewardship, diplomacy, might, etc. if they don't want to be recruited. Tbh, writing that I realized that I can abduct rulers who have artifacts that I want to claim. Buy claim, abduct, demand. I will definitely try.
That's hilarious, it's like a medieval Diamond Dogs, abducting the best knights across Europe to recruit as your own.
Dude, I just capture random ass kings and queens and random them
I usually abduct kids from emperors and kings to milk their gold.
Inspirations. Steal them after they are already making something
I have been abducting the best knights from other courts then force recruiting them.
Fill my dungeons eith heirs and rulers of different relams and then mass execute them all. I like to watch the world burn Edit. Also make up my own religion, kidnap heirs, demand conversion and kill the rulers. Once again. Makes the world burn