Paradox games but definitely NOT GAMES OF THRONE

[Gazz]

The CK2+ Shattered Worlds mod is quite good, everyone starts as a one province Earl.

Plus, you can play as Earl Brooklyn Buuser of York, first of the Dixie dynasty.

I might have to try that.

Started out as the Earl of Warwick.

I sneak attacked Leicester from behind whilst he was invading York and then I pinned Brooklyn in York to usurp his Earldom too. Created the Duchy of York and vassalized the Earl of Lincoln and gave Leicester to one of my mates.

I also expanded west towards Wales, conquering Worcester, Hereford and Shrewsbury to form the Duchy of Mercia.

After the birth of my sixth son, I prompty died leaving one son as the Duke of York, and one son as Duke of Mercia with his three brothers as vassals under him, all with claims on each others lands. Gon' be a bloodbath. The sixth (and only unlanded) son is a cruel, cowardly, stuttering dwarf...

I'm currently Duke of York, married to the Duchess of Kent and my son is due to inherit both titles.

[The Lusophone]

The CK2+ Shattered Worlds mod is quite good, everyone starts as a one province Earl.

Plus, you can play as Earl Brooklyn Buuser of York, first of the Dixie dynasty.

Broken Kingdoms is essentially another version of this.

[The Lusophone]

What's the best place to get mods/conversions and how easy are they to install? Seemingly easy since the game allows you to select what you want to run from the start.

Also - is there a LOTR mod out there?

Best place to get them is the official forums at http://forum.paradoxplaza.com (although you have to sign up IIRC). I don't think there is a LOTR mod though.

There's one in development but I'm not sure how far along it is.

The best two mods that take from other sources than history are easily the Game of Thrones mod and the Elder Kings mod, which is set during the Interregnum period of the Elder Scrolls lore.

[Ruki]

So CK2+ totally bogs down my computer. and in the shattered worlds, I'm not making enough money/not getting any claims.

[Gazz]

There were innappropriate things afoot between the Lord and his daughter in House Kenilworth...

For those that don't follow that, that's a father impregnating his own daughter, making her son also her brother.

Also, never piss off your 20 intrigue wife when you have 3 intrigue...

[whiskers]

This fucking game.

I spent all that time conquering Andalusia and Portugal as Moorish Muslims.

Then I died.

What followed was the most ridonkulous civil war ever as basically every single vassal I had rebelled.

Holy balls.

I actually managed to win independence as Robb Stark in the GOT mod and my son completely messed every damn thing up. No, Myrcella's granddaughter decided to win the North back after Robb died and the inevitable civil war between Robb's other son, Sansa's daughter and Bran's kid. It was not pretty...

[Gazz]

Apparently, the Duke of York (me) hates his son because he's banging his own mother (my wife) behind my back...

[Plubby]

The grand old Duchess of York

She's had ten thousand men.

She slept her way to the top of the heap

Then she slept back down again.

[Gazz]

Looks like I'm going to have to change the succession laws too, since all four of my grandsons are inbred bastards.

[Gazz]

All four of their heads sit on pikes outside the gates of York, the rebellious bastards.

[whiskers]

Apparently, the Duke of York (me) hates his son because he's banging his own mother (my wife) behind my back...

That would do it.

[Gazz]

I have found with CK2+, pretty much everyone is either homosexual, a bastard, incestuous or blind.

[whiskers]

I have found with CK2+, pretty much everyone is either homosexual, a bastard, incestuous or blind.

Yes, but have there been any gay incestuous bastards? And yep, second generations keep screwing me up.

[Gazz]

Probably in France or somewhere poncey like that.

That Duke, Withraed II 'the Bewitched', eventually had 11 children, 4 with his mother, 5 with his first wife and 3 with his second. Then my cousin, who hated me for various issues including banging his aunt, executing four of his kinsmen and holding three duchies he had claims on poisoned me.

So now I'm Duke Bothraed I of York, who's first act as Duke was to declare himself celibate. Luckily, he already has a son.

[Gazz]

Stoker,

Do your Blackadder idea or I'll start plotting your murder via sawn balcony supports.

[Gazz]

Hmmm, had a random Malian pop up in my court called 'Cisse Joof'.

Fighting hard against the temptation to make him Baron of Newcastle.

[TEOL]

Stoker,

Do your Blackadder idea or I'll start plotting your murder via sawn balcony supports.

Pshaw. Like he has the balls to enter the CK2 diary market.

[Sousa]

I'm trying as Ireland again. This time I've been able to conquer all of southern Ireland, enough to create the King of Ireland title.

It's actually a pretty awesome story. I got a hunting event early on with Duke #1 with a 5% chance of being mortally wounded. Bam, Duke #1 dies a month in. Duke #2 does a pretty good job of claiming new territory and divvying it up, but his stats are horrible. I marry off his heir to a Castilian princess with the hopes of getting a decent ally without risking tying myself down with someone I'll want to backstab later. Duke #2 gets so goddamned old that he actually gains the title "The Old." Soon, my Spymaster sends word while I'm in the middle of a war in the middle of Ireland that my own heir--the one married to the Spanish princess--is plotting to kill me. Literally two days later, he succeeds in his plot...

...which means I'm now the exact same son who killed me.

This delightful turn of events grants me Kinslayer from the word go, and my no-account brothers all revolt at once, all while I'm trying to siege down Ossory (and failing because my brothers' armies all went in for hits and wrecked my forces and also jesus christ the count of Ossory is a stone badass). It's at this point that I notice that my totally awesome Spanish wife has 24 Intrigue, so I make her my Spymaster basically immediately and start her stirring the pot over in Dublin where one of my brothers is rebelling.

At this point, the "Call In Allies" button suddenly starts working, and the Castilian king agrees to help me out. He basically ships over 4,000 troops totally gratis and utterly wrecks the rebellion and Ossory. And then when I declare war on Kildare later on, he ships over still more troops.

So finally, my brothers have been whipped into shape, the Pope has granted me absolution for all that Kinslaying, and my heir is now married to the Countess of Ulster and will be inheriting territory the easy way while I wait for the gold and piety to make myself king. All of this has led the game to dub me Duke Brian II the Bold (yes, my kinslaying Spanish buddy with the hot spy wife is named Brian).

[Gazz]

I've considered playing and using a chav / trailer trash name generator for my heirs.

All hail Queen Honey-Boo Boo IV of England!

I also had the best crusade ever, Pope calls a crusade to take back the Kingdom of Hellas from those dirty Orthodox Greeks. The full weight of the Catholic faith absolutely destroys the tiny Hellenic army, putting the warscore at 78% before I even make land at Constantinople. I get into a small battle, three days in my Duke gets a bump on the noggin and becomes incapable. The Greeks surrender a few days later before the battle is even finished and my Duke dies before my army has made it back to York.

Win.

[Sousa]

Okay, the Continuing Adventures of the House of Brian have taken a turn for the strange.

So when we last left our hero Duke Brian II the Bold of Munster, he was in the process of fabricating a few more claims around Ulster just to give himself something to do while he built up enough piety and cash to declare himself king. In the midst of all of this--before I created the title--I noticed that Brian was now wearing a crown. It turns out that my awesome hot Castilian spy-wife was also heir to the throne, and ol' Brian suddenly found himself King of Castile--the largest Christian kingdom in Spain--before he became King of Ireland.

Sadly, this wouldn't last long--Castile sort of exploded into civil war, probably on account of the fact that their liege was slumming it as a Spymaster for some duke up in Ireland instead of, y'know, Reconquisting the shit out of Al-Andalus or something. Right as Brian finally declared himself King and sorted out a unified Ireland, the other shoe dropped, and my awesome hot (old) (still hot) Castilian spy-wife suddenly found herself maimed and imprisoned by the new King of Castile.

Not long after this, King Brian dies. I don't remember his son's name, it's weird, but he was married to the Countess of Ulster before she rebelled and was banished (I literally had to invite my own heir back to court just so I could make him Duke of Ulster, which was the plan all along). The queen mother is still rotting in a Spanish prison with her kneecaps blown off, and Brian Jr. begins claiming Welsh counties at the behest of his courtiers. There's also some incidental civil war because jesus christ these Irish guys have a fuck-ton of brothers, but sitting on a ton and a half of gold (and having allies in France) stopped that.

Then one day, the queen mother dropped dead.

We're now a generation removed, Brian Jr. was assassinated by his no-good brother, and the Kingdom of Ireland looks like this:

We are now the Kingdom of Ireland, Most of Wales, and... Santiago.

I have the option to usurp the Duchy of Galicia from somebody, and I'm pretty sure I have the forces to take it, but... can I even get them down there? I can go by boat, right? How does that work? Should I even bother going for England and Scotland (which are annoyingly cohesive at this point), or should I use Santiago as a staging ground and just conquer Iberia? Or should I just grant Santiago independence and let them get gobbled up in the clusterfuck that is Spain?