1. Ultimogeniture puts younger people on the throne, who will then potentially have a longer reign. Of course, there's always a chance your heir is a child when you die - especially when you keep taking young wives and/or concubines - but what's a game of Crusader Kings II without a period where your Regent keeps mysteriously falling off balconies?
2. Acquire a second title of your current rank which already has primogeniture and make it your primary title. But if you just want to prevent your realm from splitting apart due to too many sons, consider the other succession forms where one heir inherits everything: Ultimogeniture (all to youngest son) Seniority (all to oldest living dynasty member).

How to achieve a stable realm. From starter to advanced. Part 2. Once you’re done with this guide you’ll know how to achieve and maintain a stable realm. Once you’re done with the entire series you’ll have an understanding of Crusader Kings 2.

Internal Stability: Succession, Law, Council and Titles

General rule: Always ensure internal stability before external expansion.

First check your succession laws and figure out which one you want. Go for any succession law that ensures your family and preferably you will get to keep as many titles as possible each succession. Primogeniture (your oldest inherits) and Ultimogeniture (your youngest inherits) are great for this. You’ll have to meet certain requirements to change the succession law, make these your goals. Any form of Gavelkind will split your realm up in one way or another.

Crusader Kings II is a grand strategy game set in the Middle Ages, developed by Paradox Development Studio and published by Paradox Interactive as a sequel to Crusader Kings. The game was released on February 14, 2012. A sequel, Crusader Kings III, was released on September 1, 2020. Crusader Kings 2 Game Guide. Table of Contents. Succession House Crusader Kings 2 Guide. It means that the king of Poland and Lithuania can subordinate to the primogeniture in one and to the feudal elective in the other. Each of those countries is treated separately, there is even no common laws about the heir's sex. Primogeniture (your oldest inherits) and Ultimogeniture (your youngest inherits) are great for this. You’ll have to meet certain requirements to change the succession law, make these your goals. Crusader Kings II – The Chessboard Basics (Part #1) Written by: Sceluswe. Crusader Kings II; Previous.

To change a law you’ll need your council to vote your way unless you’re already an absolute ruler. Pick councilors that will vote for you (mainly loyal ones, these are indicated by a black heart on a green field). The first law to go for is title revocation. Secondly reduce the power of your council until you’re the absolute ruler and then pass whichever laws you want. Once you’ve become the absolute ruler of your realm you’re free to pass laws without a council. This is when you should select councilors based on their skill instead to advance your realm technologically and to be able to utilize each councilors abilities more efficiently. Over time you’ll have to pick councilors you don’t want, councilors that just suck and that will vote against you too avoid large factions or revolts. It’s generally better than outright war. Wars cost time and money and should you get caught up in a revolt your external enemies will use that chance to press claims. Therefore it’s important to always have a loyal vassal base. Balance handing out council positions, gifts and honorary titles to achieve one. This is done by making as many vassals as possible pass the 70 opinion mark. By that point they’ll usually avoid backstabbing you and joining factions. Usually. Some traits will have them doing that anyway (lustful, envious, ambitious, greedy and so on)

Now that you’ve got your stable base and your council you can start picking off your enemies. The number one enemy is any vassal with a title that could easily be yours. Anyone who’s title you can inherit if they should “accidentally” die and if you haven’t reached your demense capacity yet. Demense capacity is the maximum amount of counties your character can control. This is shown in the top right corner. Tiny realm stability is mostly down to you having more titles and thus more men than your other vassals. This changes as your realm grows in size and it becomes more about how many people like you. Despite the size however, you want as many titles as you can possibly have. They provide you with money, men and elector titles (votes). Having more than 2 duchies will give your vassals a slight negative opinion of you, -10 per duchy above 2. If you’ve got too many they’ll revolt (due to the low opinion). You can have as many kingdoms as you want if you’re an emperor but handing them out reduces the amount of enemies you have to deal with. They become the kings problem instead as they’re now his direct vassals instead of yours. If you’re not an emperor make sure that each kingdom you hold has the same succession laws otherwise you risk splitting your realm up when your character dies.

Internal Stability: Pruning the Realm with Arrests

The “discovered plots” section in intrigue is your main tool to cleaning your realm. Arrest everyone here that doesn’t have a county. Everyone with a county or higher that is your direct vassal, can revolt if you attempt to arrest them. When you’ve made your initial arrests check each vassal with a county and decide if he’s worth arresting or not and act accordingly. Here’s how to judge vassals:

• 1. Is the character a threat to you or your realm? Does he have too many titles or soldiers? Arrest and oubilette.
• 2. Does the character have a different religion or culture? Arrest and oubilette.
• 3. Do they have bad genetic traits? Every dynasty is to be pruned like a tree, a bad genetic trait is a branch that must be cut or your people will become genetically unhealthy and you risk having these traits make their way into your family. Arrest and oubilette.
• 4. Do they have sympathy towards any religion that is not your own, or possess traits such as deceitful, envious, possessed, ambitious, lunatic or similar? Characters with these are undermining the stability of your realm. They will plot and start any war they can to get more titles. This is determined by a hidden in-game variable directly affected by afore mentioned traits. Arrest and oubilette.
• 5. Are they lustful? Lustful characters spread disease and generate rivalries. Characters who are rivals will actively seek to kill eachother and eachothers family (these could be highly skilled characters you rely on). Arrest and oubilette.
• 6. Is the character your rival? Arrest and oubilette.
• 7. Are you in desperate need of money? Check if anyone you’ve arrested has a lot of gold and can be banished, you’ll get his gold. You can also arrest someone and ransom him back to himself. If you’re not desperate for money this is a waste of time as vassals can revolt if they evade the arrest and that could cost you even more money and manpower.

In short the only people you want to keep are healthy characters with your culture and religion that like you. All others can be arrested (unless you’re short on people, then you’ll have to make do).

Early on it doesn’t matter who is in your realm or what religion and culture they have. You only need a lot of highly skilled people. When you’ve got a big realm you want to get rid of all who are not of your religion and everyone who is not of your culture, otherwise they will form secret societies and gather followers to eventually attempt a takeover and they’ll always dislike you for not having their culture/religion. You can clean your court by using the “purge” filter outlined in the previous guide and asking everyone who doesn’t fit those 2 criteria to leave your court.

Internal Stability: Pruning the Realm with Plots

Plots allow you to neutralize enemies. Enemies that are both inside and outside your realm. A neutralized character is either in your prison or dead. Each plot requires plot power. The more you have the better but don’t waste gold on convincing more people to back you if you already have enough. Enough is 80% for fabrications and 150%+ for assassinations. You can choose to get higher in assassinations if you want or have to speed up the process and if you’ve got money to spare.

If you’ve got a vassal with too many titles that has a smaller army than you make a plot that fabricates a claim on one of them and station your troops inside his county before revoking it. You can choose to revoke the title inside the intrigue menu under Decisions once you have enough plot power.

If you’ve got a rival or a large threat inside or outside your realm, plot to murder them. The larger the threat the faster it should be killed.

Fabrications and killings can also be used to prune the realm from people with a culture and religion different than yours or with unhealthy genetic traits. This is a last resort though as revoking their titles and asking them to leave your court is often faster. If for whatever reason you can’t revoke their title this is the way to go.

Internal Stability: Pruning the family

You family is your lifeline. The more healthy family members the better. You don’t have to be afraid of family members that spread claims to your titles or prepare invasions against you. It’s better to have 300 extra lives and lose a few provinces (although you never will if you work on your realm) than to have your dynasty die out and your game end. If you’re able get matrilineal marriages for your women to further your dynasty. The alliance part of the game is weak and alliances rarely matter except in a few cases. The AI doesn’t know how to make useful alliances so you’ll only have to when you’re in real trouble.

If you’ve got a character that’d just suck as an heir or that’s got an unhealthy genetic trait and you are a christian you can order the person to take vows making them less likely to bear children and disinheriting them. You can also order them to join a holy order to the same effect.

Don’t be afraid to murder a family member if that person or a faction has started a large revolt against you in said family members name. Killing them will end the war immediately. Worst case scenario you’ll be known as a kinslayer and get a negative modifier with all your vassals. The kinslayer trait can be removed if you pay the pope to forgive your sins. This can be an alternative if you think the revolt will cost you more time and money than kinslaying. And who knows, maybe you’ll get away with it? If you’re playing as a muslim you can just go ahead and kill, they can’t get the kinslayer trait.

If you’ve got a family member with an unhealthy genetic trait and you can’t order them to take the vows, killing them usually isn’t worth it. Just make sure they like you so they’ll stay in your court and never marry them off.

External Stability

What Is The Best Succession Law? :: Crusader Kings II General ...

This is easily achieved by having more soldiers than all neighboring countries or by having enough strong and loyal allies that any neighbor doesn’t want to touch you. At most you might have to murder a kinsman that’s planning an invasion against you or another kingdoms leader that has too good stats but if you do you’ve already failed at maintaining internal stability. There are cases where you can use an incoming planned invasion to your benefit. If you’re being invaded all your vassals get a +25 opinion of you because you’re defending the realm against invaders. This can be used to revoke a title and keep the invasion war going for a while. I’d only do this if that revokation really mattered to internal stability (perhaps a festering culture that is not your own).

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Are you new to Crusader Kings 2 and don’t know where to start? You probably encountred the tip to start from Ireland for the begging but the game is still slow and/or confusing? Fear not for this guide will show you how to create a kingdom in one character!

Crusader Kings II - Wikipedia

Chapter 0: Before We Start

Before we start let’s clear something out that can be confusing for new players:

Cassus Beli is a reason for war. Without it you can’t fight. You can wage war against someone who has lands you or one of your courtiers have claim on and few other reasons, but for the sake of this guide we will need just Claim and De jure.

De jure means “by law”. Every duchy consists of counties, every kingdom is made of duchies and so on. If you have duchy title, but not all of it’s de jure lands belong in your realm, you can wage war against outside holders. Winning De jure war always results in realm coming to your realm (but if you are the king it’s not always for you, I will describe it later).

Claim is “legal” right for the land. Legal is in quotation marks since they can be fabricated (important!). Pressing a claim means wage a war in a name of person having the claim agains person holding the title. Winning the war not always result in land coming to your realm! If you are not claimant there are two conditions that must be met to get a land through Claim war:

• Claimant must already have land in your land (barony will suffice).
• The title you are pressing claim on must be lower than yours.

For example, if ou are a duke and you press claim on a duchy for someone else, that person will be independant. But if you are king and press a claim on duchy for your vassal duke, then duke will have two duchies and you still are his liege.

That should be enough to get you starting.

Chapter 1: Starting Up

Step 1: Choosing your character.

For begginers, Ireland with a starting date of 1066 is a good choice for couple of reasons. Most rulers are count-tier which means they have up to 3 counties which is low. That gives you early advantage since you can easly gain more lands and be the most powerful person in the land.

Easiest characters are:

• Murchad ua Brian, duke of Munster – he is a duke with a single county, two vassals, a De jure claim on a nerby county, male heir and, what’s most important, a historical bloodline. That bloodline can be passed to his descendants which give ua Brians an advantage over other Irish rulers.
• Aed ua Conchobair, duke of Connacht – an old guy with realm of two is weaker than Murchad, but still relevant since he is duke, but he lacks the bloodline and lands. His advantage lies in his position. West Connacht has a double battle modifer giving your troops advantage and giving enemies disadvantage at the same time (attacking from here gives our troops disadvantage though).
• Murchad ua Cheinnselaig, count of Dublin – his start is a little bit trickier than the last two since he is a count and has no de jure claims. But he has two things other counts hasn’t at that is county of Dublin which is both duchy and kingdom de jure capital (it gives nice modifier to troops) and is an heir for county of Leinster, which makes him triple count. His dad has to die first though, by natural means, or your scheming. He is old, so you can just wait up.

For the sake of simplicity, the rest of the guide will be made as if ua Brian was chosen to play.

Step 2: Council. First thing you do is checking your council.

• Set your chancellor to Fabricate claim job on whatever county near you, but in case of Desmond it’s not needed(you already have De jure claim on it so it ‘s not neccesary, but if you fabricate claim you prevent a civil war, more on it later).
• Set your marshal to train troops in your capital
• Set your steward to collect taxes in your capital
• Set your spymaster to Study technology in another country (if you are ua Cheinnselaig and are plotting to kill your father set him to Build Spy network in Leincester)
• Set your chaplain to improve religous relation with any of your bishops.

If any of your council members has their stats below 15 here is a quick way to change it:

Go to Find character.

Set join court on yes and search all (remember that only men can be in council, exception is rulers wife who can be spymaster).

Filter them by what ability you need and invite those with best. Profit!

Having done that let’s go to the next step, which is…

Step 3: Stabilizing your realm using a civil war.

Cached

Yes you read that right. You are going to cause a civil war to get the counties your vassals have. We are doing it because if you control the county, you get all the troops, if it’s your vassal, it’s 40% at best. How do you do that though? There are 2 ways: the way of tyrant and the way of intrigue.
The way of tyrant is simpler one, but crippling your opinion. Just revoke the titles one by one and crush them. Be careful though, this impose tyranny (-40 opinion, ouch).
The way of intrigue takes longer but doesn’t impose tyranny:

• Go to intrigue (F7).
• In My Plots you have a table, click on the blue “Choose a plot”.
• Choose “Revoke county of …”

To succeed you need 80% plot power and at least 1 backer (that’s why your chaplain works on improving relations). If you meet the requirements, there is decision to revoke the county. By revoking them in this way vassals usualy rebel, which means you have to apply good old way of crushing them to bits. You should have more troops from your one county and vassal so it’s no worry.

When you hold all counties in your realm you can get to next chapter.

Chapter 2: Conquest and Creating the Kingdom

So you have your realm stabilized. Good. Next step after winning the civil wars is more wars.

Step 0: Press your de jure claim on any counties that are outside of your realm and proceed to do with them what you did in chapter 2. If you are over your demense limit, raise the centralization law

Step 1: Fabricate Claim.
This is the reason most people don’t play as Ireland when they learn to play. Other countries can gain lands by pressing other claims, but Irish usually have to do without it at the beginning, which is bit tedious.
If you managed to fabricate the claim, just press it and win war and proceed to next step.

Step 2: Foregin Climants.
If you didn’t or you don’t want to wait for Fabricate to work then find a county you want to conquer. Click on it’s shiled and it will take you to the realm page. There is a button named “Claimants”. If it’s grey then though luck, try elswehere. If it’s blue, then let’s get to party. Clicking the button shows you the list containing all people with claims to that realm. If beside their portrait is green thumb up, then you hit a jackpot and can invite him to court. You can now press his claim in war, BUT DON’T DO THAT YET! If he doesn’t have land in your realm, he will just become new independent ruler, so first you have to give him something (even a barony will suffice). Then press the claim and win the war. If you are short on counties to give (leave at least as much as your most powerful vassal have to yourself), then just chapter 2 someone. Repeat this step until you have 10 counties in your realm, and then…

Step 3: Long live the king!
You can create a kingdom now, but don’t be so hasty, there is one last thing to do before making kingdom! Your deflaut succesion law is Gavelkind which means all your sons get some of your lands when you die. You want to change that to ethier Tanistry or Primogeniture.

When I wrote Tanistry, I felt the fanbase howl in hatred at me, but please just listen.
Both succesion laws make it so all your ladns go to your heir after your death. Difference is that in Primogeniture your heir is always your eldest child (usually son) and in Tanistry your heir is Tanist.
Tanist is chosen by you and your vassals from your dynasty (they tend to favor the elders). So you ask why the hell would I want that. Answer is simple: usually you don’t, but there are two exceptions:

• If your realm is full of counts of your dynasty, it enables you to gather all your familys land back togheter (not quite, since vassals usually favor landless heirs, but it’s possible).
• Primogeniture gives all your not-eldest child -10 opinion on you, which means nothing, unless they are also your vassals.

For the rest of the land, ethier conquer them with de jure claim or offer them vassalization. Many accept if you haven’t waged war on them.

Chapter 3: What Next?

When you become the king, you should already have a knack on this game, so ethier go play someone else, or become emperor of Britannia.

To become emperor, just do what you did earlier on dukes instead of counts. Best order of conquering the British isles is Wales, Scotland and England. Wales are just a bunch of dukes, like Ireland was before you happend, but it has less land than Ireland, so it’s not a best start. Scotland is already a kingdom, and it can kick your ♥♥♥ quick if you don’t watch it, but getting it piece by piece is quite easy. England is trickier due to it’s size, but doable if you have Wales or Scotland under your thumb.