If it was a matrilineal marriage, I believe her claim stays with her (your son is essentially a prince-consort) and then goes to their son, if any.
It was a normal marriage, so surely the claim she had would have passed to any children she had? Or do claims only last for one generation? i.e. you can’t inherit a claim of someone who was never a direct holder of the title itself after they’ve died? I guess it would get around the nightmarish complexity of people being 16th to the throne or something which would make for a mess of management later in the game.
I cut my Paradox teeth on Vicky 2 and spent a lot of cold winter nights under its spell; I’ve since tooled around with HOI3 and EU3 but haven’t had the same love. Is CK2 complete enough to justify playing it, or should I spend my Paradox budget on upgrading EU3 to HTTT/DW and wait until a few patches have come by?
As far as I know, claims are only inherited if they’ve been “pressed”. That means you must’ve started a war with that claim as a cause. If you hover over a claim, it will say if it will be inherited or must be pressed.
Beardpig, I think CKII is very playable right now. Of course, the price will go down at some point, a few patches should make it better, so it’s hard to judge when the best time to buy it is for you.
Silly me - I didn’t pay attention to the qualifier “passes those claims to their successors”. In this example the French princess who my king married kept the claim until she died, then it passed through the succession to her children. Of course now I have a lovely situation where I can press a claim for the whole of France on behalf of my two children - hundred years war anyone? 
CK2 is the single best and most complete game out of the gate that Paradox have ever released. To give you an idea it was released as version 1.02, and within a week or so 1.03 was released. I would unreservedly recommend you go for it, if my first post in this thread interests you at all.
That said, if you have EU3:complete only you certainly need HttT. Opinions on DW are somewhat mixed but I would say it’s a net benefit (with the 5.1 patch).
Okay, I got CK2 and I’m loving it.
Proposal to the assembly: I have two friends who are also into it. What would be an appropriate set-up for 3 players who want to work together and dominate the game? I was thinking each of us take a large dukedom in a different kingdom - one in England, one in France, and then Bohemia 'cuz I love 'em - and we support each other in our races to the thrones. What if, instead, we want to compete?
I bought it a few days ago and I’m hooked. To my shame I bought all the other Paradox games when they were on sale but never got around to playing them. Are they all this addictive?
Although I’m slowly beginning to understand the game I’m still left scratching my head over something that just happened…
I had a de jure claim for Connacht in Ireland, I declared war and won. My new vassal was mightily pissed and rebelled less than a year later, I wiped the floor with his ass and threw him in jail as per the terms of our peace agreement. At this point I was under the apparent misapprehension that I could revoke his title without angering my other vassals. I consider rebelling against your liege to be a traitorous act. Yet that wasn’t the case. I still took the -20 relationship penalty with my other vassals.
It was still worth it but I’m not sure what I did wrong?
That could be fun. I think I may be ready to start out with a bigger holding.
I’m in a game right now in about 1150. I started with a single county in Wales. I am now King of Wales, King of Ireland and all but 3 counties of Ireland are in my realm.
I don’t have a ton of claims to press at this point, but if I get ambitious I may go for the duchy of the Isles and possibly Scotland after that. (Depends on what how all those other wars go) Or I may just build my little two country empire and try to build up enough strength to hold them until the end.
You took the hit from your vassals firstly because you placed him in prison as part of the terms of a peace treaty. Additional punishment looks bad. Secondly, revoking a title at least under the first several levels of crown law will always give you a hit. Lower crown law levels mean your vassals are more autonomous. They don’t like it when even their liege steps in on their turf. (Or on another, if you would do it to someone else why not to them?)
Additional punishment doesn’t always look bad, but I agree with you I think the issue here is likely to be the kingdom’s crown authority. If it’s set too low you won’t be able to revoke titles without a penalty to your vassal opinions even if it is justified.
I think I’m getting the hang of things now, but I made a tremendous error yesterday playing England for the second time. Decided as William the conqueror to set up all of my sons as dukes, not realising just how incredibly incompetent my son who was due to inherit was (really, it was shocking). Because the other sons were all dukes when he came to power they not only hated him because of the “pretender” opinion hit, but of course were in a position to make life very hard too (which they did - the entire country, every single duchy and their counts, was in open rebellion within two years). Note to self, the solution to unlanded who aren’t your heir is NOT a duchy!!!
Thank you for the replies.
A wave of consumption is passing through my counties. I’ve lost count of how many have died. I’d been grooming my first son and heir, he was all set to make an awesome leader when he died suddenly. Now my heir is his 1 year old child. Bugger.
I’m in a position of having an incompetent heir right now. I really have no idea how his skills ended up so low, especially diplomacy. It’s only 14!
I’ve been trying to get my grandson betrothed to the daughter of one of the last independent dukes in Ireland. But he wants a ‘better alliance’. How does he think he’ll do better than the grandson of the king of Ireland and Wales? GRRR.
Just had a blast with an interesting series of regime changes…
Started as the Duke of Provence, but poor Bertrand didn’t last very long - killed fighting in Sardinia in his 20’s at the behest of Henry IV. Leaving his poor two year-old daughter Filomena as sole heir. Well, no problem - raised her up, married her vassal and kissin’ cousin the young Bosonid Count of Forcalquier ( preserving her dynasty without the annoyance of a matrilineal marriage, at the cost of possibly less healthy spawn ). Began expanding and added the Duchy of Dauphine. All was chugging along, until…
Matilda of Canossa launches an all too quasi-historical grand conspiracy against Henry IV for control of the empire. The revolt is massive and I stay out of it ( minus the troops the emperor kept requisitioning ) for several years. At some point Henry IV kicks off and his son Henry V takes over and suddenly I get an invitation from Mathilda to join the rebellion. After thinking about it for a minute I decide Duchess Filomena is still kind of PO’d about her dad dieing when she was a toddler fighting a foreign war for a distant emperor and Mathilda and her are both isolated women in power and what the hell…
*Mathildine Faction - Mathilda ( Duchies of Tuscany and Modena ) in Italy; Me ( Duchies of Provence and Dauphine ) and the Duke of Savoy in Burgundy; all of Lotharingia ( Dukes of Upper and Lower Lorraine, the Duke of Brabant, the Duke of Luxemburg ), Saxony ( the Billung Duke of Brunswick and Saxony ) and the Duke of Baden in Germany.
Loyalist Faction - The Emperor ( Duchy of Franconia + some worthless pagan land in Pomerania ); the King of Bohemia; the Dukes of Brandenburg, Carinthia, Thuringia, Meissen, Bavaria and Swabia in Germany; the Duke of Lombardy and Carinthian Verona in Italy; the independent counts of Upper Burgundy in Burgundy. *
I think Mathilda was already winning slightly after years of fighting. She and her allies had definitely gotten the upper hand in northern Germany. But I tipped the balance as everyone else was exhausted from years of fighting and I had saved up a decent chunk of cash for a new building or two. I hired a sizeable number of mercenaries instead and hunted down and largely broke up the main imperial armies, then cleared Burgundy and Italy for Mathilda. That was enough warscore for Mathilda to win - all hail Empress Mathilda!
However. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of years later that Prince Henry, Duke of Franconia ( the former Henry V ) launched a counter-coup! This time I stayed completely out as Mathilda had it well in hand. Henry had himself, Lombardy and Savoy and not a lot else and Mathilda crushed him like a bug. But he still survived and…
When a number of years later an elderly Mathilda died, her sons divided her lands and somehow, despite two successive defeats with all that lost prestige, the electors chose Henry of Franconia to succeed her. All hail Henry V! Again!
I was mightily amused :p.
That’s why elective law is a mug’s game. Until I know how to play this game well I’m not even going to stray into something that has gavelkind or elective as the law (although I do want a go as HRE at some point).
Well I have been playing this a lot. I was right to worry how much time I would loose to this game!
Does anyone know how succession works for your vassal counts. I have lost a couple of provinces and I am not sure why. If I have elective law are my vassals titles also elective and they happen to prefer foreign heirs?
Also, is there an increase to revolt risk if a province isn’t connected with the rest of your land? I had one province that revolted continuously even though I couldn’t see any reason for it too (Same culture and religion) until it became connected.
Succession weirdness has worked in my favour as well. I had dismissed my levies from my counties, but the military tab kept saying I had levies raised. I then discovered that I had somehow acquired baronies in Byzantine Empire and Germany. It is cool that I have them, but I’m not sure there is much I can do with them as Italy.
Last night I played three hours of a game with two friends, and it was amazing. Each one of us was a Duke of Hungary, and we were all plotting against the king. Playing this game multiplayer is serious fun, especially when you can use some kind of teamspeak.
…
Anybody want to organize a game?
For your entertainment I’m going to post another fun account from the Paradox CK2 forums, hoping to entice any lurkers out of the woodwork!
It had all been going so well…
…or, how my one bad king shattered my domain, ended my ascension to hegemony, and destroyed the catholic church.
So playing as Castile, and things are going great. Had unified all the crowns of Spain, taken Sicily and thrown the Muslims out of Iberia. Thinking to myself, that it was almost time to strike at France, if they would ever have a mediocre king (they had an amazing run of good luck). Had had myself a loyal anti-Pope for a few generations, so I was rolling in money. Had done enough improvement to my dominion that it was becoming strong economically.
But it was not meant to be. Because my Caligula, my Commodus rose to the throne. Marco III Marquez Jimena, better known to history as King Marco “the cruel” rose to the throne, despite any ability to govern. King of Castile, Leon, Asturias, Aragon, Portugal, and other places too numerous to mention.
He took pleasure in torturing and executing noble prisoners. He was fighting against rebellions nearly constantly, draining the coffers and preventing him from having the ability to wage a long war for fear of having rebellions take place in Spain as he marched. he was slothful, he was hated. He was a tyrant.
All of these things could have been forgiven however, if he hadn’t run so afoul of the church.
You see, the Papal schism had been going on for some time, and the authority of the church had been drained. The whole of Germany had gone heretic, and the Emperor now brought his power to the defense of heresy. The Cathar heresy had spread throughout Italy, and even into Iberia itself.
Marco III decided to end the schism with a massive all-or-nothing invasion of the Papal states to place his man on St. Peter’s throne. This, he hoped, would give him a grateful ally in Rome, restore the church to a position of power, and enable him to finally get the authorization he needed to invade France.
The invasion was expensive in men and in gold, but the old Pope was toppled. Marco III celebrated his triumph by torturing some prisoners.
But the expensive triumph was short-lived; within a couple of months it would all unravel. The puppet Pope on whom Marco III had counted on died unexpected at the young age of 30, and a new unloyal holy father came to power. Marco the cruel’s reputation had been so tarnished during the invasion and due to the very public assassination of the deposed Pope, that it didn’t take long for the King’s vassals to petition the new Pope for excommunication. This was granted when the King’s own MOTHER, the Duchess of Aragon, requested it.
Iberia erupted into rebellion after rebellion. Every vassal who had nursed a grudge gleefully took up arms against the King, and one by one the more loyal ones were swayed to their side. Marco was defeated time and again, and his coffers were now drained. The only ones willing to fight in his name were the mercenaries, and they wouldn’t do so for much longer since the money was drying up.
Marco was eventually compelled to give up the crown of Castile to his child son, Alfonso IX. The crown laws for each of his kingdoms has been set to “autonomous vassals”, and he clings to weak power in Sicily and western Iberia. For the sake of the dynasty, his young son must now seek to assassinate his own father, or pray that he meets with an untimely end.
Will try playing as the boy-King Alfonso IX now, to help deliver the only salvation that the entire kingdom agrees must come, the death of King Marco the Cruel.
Thought I’d share this tale with you all. I know you can probably relate, and if not, your Caligula is coming.
I just bought the title last night, sat through half of the tutorials.
One thing the tutorial cannot teach me is strategy. It can teach me the mechanics of raising armies, but not how to set goals, select a path, and scheme my way around Europe.
I expect my games to be short and frustrating. 
The game looks pretty, too.
mlees - but that’s the fun! 
I’m playing my fourth game now and each time I’ve learnt how to do or not do things better. Part of it is finally understanding how the mechanics work (“so THAT’S how you inherit a claim through marriage!”), part is understanding what is best to do when.
For example, it’s only really becoming clear to me how to focus the activities of my rulers depending on high or low scores in their stats; I am probably going to be constrained in my efforts with some monarchs, like if they have an incredibly high intrigue but low diplomacy I can protect myself or turn others against each other, but I’m going to struggle to make anyone really like me. Under such a ruler I’m going to have to have to try and keep things together and wait for a new ruler. When you have a ruler with a high stewardship but everything else is a bit crap then that’s the time to start throwing money into investment, because what else are you going to do? High martial? WAR!
And so on. Don’t be discouraged, see it as the start of what is going to be a very exciting journey. I’m surprised how easy it is to get into, considering how dense and complex the game is.