The first button to the right of your portrait in the UI is your council. There are various ways to gain a claim, but at the early stage your going to have to fabricate one. You need a valid claim, a “Casus belli” before you can think about raising your troops.

You can’t just go to war wherever you please though. Now that your dynasty is safe it’s time to improve your realm so that it may grow for future generations. This is why the absolute first thing you must do when starting a new game is to marry and secure yourself an heir. The only way to “lose” a game of Crusader Kings II is to have your character pass away with no heir of your dynasty to inherit. Rule for long enough and you can make a variety of charges to succession laws to affect the type of heir you will have, but most likely you will be handing the reigns to the first born son. When the character you are playing as dies, through the various ways that it will inevitably happen, you take over as their heir. Family and lineage are the most important things in Crusader Kings II. In Crusader Kings II you are not playing as a nation, nor even as a single character, but as an entire dynasty. In 1066 all the counties in Ireland are ruled by males, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. I added Queen to the end there not just as a nod to the opposite sex. Once you are loaded into the game, leave it paused and familiarise yourself with the UI, especially the top left panels, as those are where the majority of your gameplay options are held.

In 1066 each county in Ireland is its own ruler, and you can fairly easy work your way up from Count to Duke and finally on to declaring yourself as King or Queen. Here you will be able to learn the mechanics of the game without worrying about any of the bigger nations coming to impose their rule on you, especially on the West coast.

It’s not important which one, any of them that aren’t too old really. With the base game the earliest you can start is 1066, so go ahead and pick the Stamford Bridge start date then pick a Count in Ireland to play as. TL DR video version of these tips.Īny veteran player will give you this advice. The number one question I get asked is, how do you actually play it? Well, here are my Top 5 Tips for getting started in Crusader Kings II. Yet we are still seeing expansion after expansion for the game, and thanks to a number of steam and humble bundle sales the player base is still growing. Crusader Kings II is a game that, at the time of writing, is three years old.

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