If you register your game on the Paradox forums, you get access to the hidden sub-forums under the CK2 forum. One of those is the FAQ forum which has a brilliant thread called something like “In-depth CK2 info”. There’s a lot of other useful posts in the main CK2 forum too, and of course you can ask anything you don’t finds answers to.
There are also some series of “how-to” videos on youtube.
I’ve made so many mistakes in my first game yet still managed to drag my dynasty, kicking and screaming at times, forward. It seems I prefer to learn all my lessons the hard way.
My current character is a women (-10 penalty) and a kinslayer (-25). The pope has called a crusade that everyone seems to be ignoring, my army is no match for them. What’s more, as a women I can’t lead an army and get that lovely crusader trait I’ve been abusing in the past. My most powerful Duke is ambitious (-50). An enemy Duke was absolutely pissed that I took one of his counties and got me excommunicated (-30) while I was in the middle of a civil war and didn’t have enough money to pay it off. About a month after I’d quelled the rebellion and paid off the pope I got excommunicated again, at the request of the same person.
Still, I’m determined to play it out. My kingdom is settling down, I’ve sent my court chaplain out to kiss the pope’s arse and hopefully someone will kill me soon. My current heir is a diplomatic genius (25) and all around good guy but he couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. Of course the ambitious little sod hates his mummy but I honestly can’t blame him for that…
If anyone had problems with the 1.04 patch causing hangs or crashes, there’s a 1.04c update out today that fixes those problems. On Steam it will automatically install, but Gamersgate users will need to download it from the Paradox CK2 Tech Support forum.
As I mentioned in the digital sale thread, Amazon has CKII for $17.99 (until the 8th, I believe). I just picked up the game and am looking forward to it. I loved the demo.
You’ll love it. I’m fairly well obsessed with it now. As much as I thought the first one was great…this one is better.
The next patch sounds like it is going to add some quite significant improvements. As much as the game was absolutely complete and good to go when it was released (for a change when it comes to Paradox games) it’s good to see the developers want it to be even better and are still making more content and changes.
Yes, this is part of Paradox’s move to separate and add value to all of DLC, patches and expansions.
The first major DLC for CK2:
First Major DLC - What you requested! | Paradox Interactive Forums!
The first two Dev Diaries of what’s in the upcoming 1.05 patch are out:
Crusades now target an entire de jure kingdom. Also, the actual crusade is one common war, that the Pope declares and other rulers can join. The one ruler contributing the most to the crusade will gain the targetted Kingdom, if the war is successful.
the possibility for a ruler to ask to join another ruler’s war, for some types of wars, even though you are not allied.
the concept of attached armies … When you give the order to one of your units, it will attach itself to the strongest friendly army in the same province, and then follow that one around, fighting together with it.
participating in a war and doing things are now rewarding. Participants in wars now get a contribution score which determines how much prestige and piety they get when the war ends. This is a good reason for a smaller count to join in on a crusade, even though he may himself not be crowned King of Jerusalem, he may end up with a lot of prestige and piety from it.
CK II - 1.05 Development Diary - 2 of 3 - April 6th 2012 | Paradox Interactive Forums
a concept called Dynamic Kingdoms. … duchies can now be assimilated into another de-jure kingdom, after belong to that kingdom for at least 100 years. So if England holds Normandy for 100 years, it will become a de-jure part of England, and the crown-laws of England will apply to Normandy. This also makes the unification of Spain, as one Kingdom, a long-term practical goal
the concept of creating titular titles, if you hold the scripted capital. Titular titles are more expensive to create than titles that have land already de-jure to them. This means that you can now create the Kingdom of Venice if you so desire..
added quite a lot of kingdoms to the map from the start, so that some of the major ones like France and Germany are slightly less powerful blocks at the start of the game. Frisia, Lotharingia, Bavaria, Pomerania, Aquitaine and Britanny are now de jure kingdoms from 1066, even if they are not actual titles held by someone.
Some changes to kingdom setup also include Galicia and Navarre being de jure kingdoms, and the kingdom of Al-Andalus is now called Andalusia and can be created by anyone in the Arabic culture group.
a kingdom can only be created if you are already a king or emperor, OR you hold more than one duchy title.
Kings and Emperors can now also take counties inside their de-jure realms, as we changed how Ducal Claims work to now be a “De Jure Claim”, so if you as King of Burgundy holds a province that is de jure France, France can always attack you for it.
Really don’t like that. Trends too heavily towards the ahistoric IMHO.
That may be the point; the historical Kingdoms which we got weren’t really how an observer at the time would think things would go. And inded, many times the Franks might have been broken forever, or Germany could have easily taken another path.
Ahistoric as it turned out, but was not known or certain to be that way at the time. FAWK we could be talking about Frisian ovens instead of Dutch.
I am enjoying myself so far, but I’ve learned the hard way to pay attention to marriage proposals.
My first few games were quickly abandoned, following patterns I’d used in EU3 and Victoria 2 when I started them. My next game was going fairly well. I was playing as Dublin, and fell just short of creating the Kingdom of Ireland with the opening character. (I had the piety and money, but was one county short when he dropped dead). I obtained the necessary county with his son, but he died about 10 piety short of the total needed. His grandson was the heir, and during his regency, I arranged his tutoring to guarantee he’d pull in the piety quickly, and by the time he was 20, he became the King of Ireland. At this time, I had my eyes on Wales, and had forged a claim on one county there.
Then came the marriage proposal. Would I like to marry the heir presumptive to the English crown? A quick check finds that the current King is elderly, sick, and chaste, so there will likely be no boys on the way. I snap that up in a heartbeat. Of course, I missed the key of the proposal - it was matrilineal of course. I discover this about a year later when my son is born, and I’m told that my heir apparent is of a different dynasty. So starts my (unsuccessful) attempts to kill off my own wife and child. Game over.
I do agree with your points in a general sense. My problem is that by the mid-eleventh it seems to me that the geo-political situation, while still a little fluid, was becoming a lot more deterministic. Ninth or tenth century? Sure. 1066? More problematic from my POV. Aquitaine unlikely by then, Brittany more so…Bavaria? I just don’t see any path for an independent kingdom of Bavaria distinct from Germany to rise at that point in time.
The problem then becomes when does unlikely cross over into the realm of near-fantasy. I could sorta buy Aquitaine, though with the steady disintegration of ducal authority and the opposite happening in other parts of France, it would really take an awful lot of luck ( and probably the successful absorption of Toulouse, as nearly happened historically ). Bavaria I just can’t envision and for me the other mentioned states fall somewhere in between those two poles. So it’s not the core concept itself I reject, just some of the proposed details.
New patch is landing tomorrow - looking forward to starting a new game and testing the new mechanics out.
I love the items being changed, since they’ve been some of my biggest issues from the game. I’m really pleased that they’re including cause of death, since it would be nice to know if my heir just legitimately dropped dead of an illness or was the victim of a plot. Additional plots will be nice, but I’d really like some additional ambitions as well.
Patch is live, liking it so far. It’s got a few bugs, but the improvements are definitely big ones. Enjoying it so far. 
Yes, I’m afraid there are a number of new bugs in it. None are game-breaking, but a couple are more than minor. For instance all education traits are espionage-related, the mouse scroll-wheel doesn’t work in search lists, and MP play appears to be impossible.
Paradox have promised a hot patch within a day or two.
Also my saves seem to keep breaking 
Eh, no matter, still a fun game with the new features
Yeah, but they’re looking ahead, too. Sure, it’s unlikely that bavaria would have emerged separately. But the KoG was gyrating all the time, and Bavaria did in fact emerge along with other states. Remember, too, that it’s essentially a potential title. I think they created some of these so that players (AI, too) coudl use them to muddy the political situation. Likewise, Aquitaine might be jumping the gun, but in effect it did actually become a separate power.
I picked up CK2 myself, and loving it. Playing as Leon, I was amused to see my brothers manage to off themselves with ill-advised wars against Muslim Spain. This has left me with a lot of potential enemies, but at the same time I’ve also got my pick of targets. I just need to keep building my power base by picking at targets with few friends and avoiding 4000-man stacks of doom. Once the time is right, it’s HOLY WAR, muthas!
I did, however, learn the hard way (several restarts) to make my sister Urraca Jiminez the target of a plot almost immediately. For whatever reason, doing this and demanding her title and lands forced her to starta a war but seems to have prevented my brothers from joining in, so that I don’t immediately get torn apart. Hilariously, after I won this (several years of weird political issues which prevented me from winning the seige later and after absorbing Castille and getting crushed by said 4000-man Muslim stack’O’doom and surrenduring but not losing any lands), she fled to the court of Galician. Then my idiot brother got himself killed, too, so she wound up back in my court. Then I really, really got the last laught by imprisoning her for no penalty - then releasing her in a grand show fo forgiveness which made my vassals so very happy.
And me, too. I was very happy to make that traitorous bitch eat her own hair. 
There have been two post-1.05 patches, with the latest one 1.05c all the serious bugs seem to be addressed. Saves from earlier 1.05 ought to be OK, but not necessarily so from 1.04 .