Crusader Kings 2 was received as one of the most involving medieval Europe simulators released in the past year (an accolade many strive for and often fall short of) and since its release has been enjoying a steady stream of patches. Well, so long as you went to the game’s website and updated your install yourself. Not, though, Paradox have pushed all the patches to Steam bringing the game up to date and adding a huge amount of new content.

• De Jure Drift
• Crusader Kings 2 De Jure Drift 2017

I’ve copied the entire thing in below, lifting it all from the Steam News feed, but cast your eyes over just the major updates if none of the others:

– Added Nahua culture and Aztec religion
– Faction System
– Characters can have both a Plot and an Ambition
– Retinue System support for the Legacy of Rome DLC
– Orthodox and related religions have Autocephalous Patriarchs and the Pentarchy
– Rebalanced Combat, with more focus on leaders and their traits. More leader traits.
– Liege levies. You only raise levies from your direct vassals, and they are not directly connected to Holdings.
– A number of self improvement Ambitions for characters
– New religions: Miaphysite, Nestorian, Monothelite
– Two new Bookmarks: The Alexiad and The Latin Empire
– AI: Improved military AI
– Major speed optimizations
– Greatly reduced graphics memory load
– Plugged some memory leaks
– New events for characters with the lunatic trait
– Spymaster’s Discover Plots job has been renamed to Scheme, and now also affects faction membership
– New icons added to all decisions

Neat-o, right?

Here are the rest of the patch’s changes for your perusal:

MAJOR:
– Added Nahua culture and Aztec religion

MINOR:
– Retinues no longer get free leaders
– Liege levies raised via the province view are now raised in the selected province
– You can now forbid your council from leading armies
– Optimized succession calculation, which could cause massive slowdowns in big dynasties with many landed members
– Intrigue plots vs barons or their courtiers can now include their liege’s courtiers and other vassals
– Fixed Scottish Schiltron building giving 10x defensive bonus to pikes
– Fixed Dutch cultural retinue lacking pikes
– Fixed an issue with AI strength calculations the first month after loading a game
– A bit more randomness in the size of the rebel reinforcements in civil wars
– The Pope now receives even less war contribution score in Crusades
– Fixed a crash with a null war list in Province View and Diplomacy View
– Mercenary regiments and Holy Orders will now automatically get a new leader when the old one dies
– Less likely that the captain of a merc regiment gets reassigned to lead something else
– Kingdoms no longer assimilate out of de jure empires that have no holder
– Fixed a bug with not being able to move capital back to your title’s preferred capital
– The Imperial Reconquest CB now only works for the restored Roman Empire
– The Imperial Reconquest CB no longer clears out all rulers under the title
– Disbanding multiple selected units will never disband retinues if there are non-retinues in any selected unit
– Liege levies will now disband if their owner is at war with the owner of the unit
– Retinues no longer reinforce if their owner has no money
– Diplo AI: Imprisoned vassals or below will always accept a demand for religious conversion, and go free from prison
– AI: Much better at assigning flank commanders for important armies
– AI: Less likely to go overboard with Crown Authority
– AI: Not interested in Lower CA plots in irrelevant kingdoms/empires
– AI: Fixed a bug with it not dismissing liege levies when done with them
– Army AI: Fixed a bug with invasions not happening when they should
– Ledger page with independent rulers now shows troops including retinues
– Shift or Ctrl clicking buttons in Ruler Designer coat of arms designer now multiplies the frame change by 5 or 10
– Fixed bug where byzantine unit pack was replacing all eastern europeans
– Raising troops via raise all or raise on province will now merge units
– Now allowed to ask to join tribal invasion wars
– Fixed bugged altaic culture building modifier
– Fixed the history of c_sodermanland
– Fixed consistency issue with German characters name Philipp
– Fixed faulty employment date for Robrecht van Gent
– Fixed broken Ua Conchobair dynasty
– Province of Bira no longer stays Orthodox for the entire game
– Fixed bug where imprisoned underage rulers could kill their regents
– Gave The Two Saltuks from Erzurum their correct names
– Corrections to Phillip IV of France and many related characters
– Sigrid Ylving no longer has the wrong mother
– Fixed the deathdate of King Charles IV of France
– Added missing Ecumenical Patriarchs
– Fixed a bug where courtiers of landless characters would be listed in a weird location
– Fixes and additions to various Frankish and Occitan dynasties
– Fixes and additions to the Hunfirding dynasty
– Missing marriages, mothers, children of Valdemar II and Erik V of Denmark added
– Fixed a rare crash in ‘on_siege_over’
– AI: The independence faction does not present an ultimatum until it has at least 33% of the liege’s strength
– AI: De jure vassals of your culture and religion, except kings, will not start or join independence factions
– Reduced the chance of massive rebel reinforcements for the Independence faction
– Diplo AI: Mongols and Aztecs will no longer revoke titles off human players just for having the wrong religion or culture
– Armenian, Georgian and Alan cultures updated with new names, name linkings and patronymics
– Fixes to the County of Melgueil
– Ingeborg Magnusdotter now has the correct gender
– Sartag Khan now converts to Nestorianism instead of Orthodoxy
– Corrections to the religion of several Zirid characters
– A few Catalan name fixes
– Changes and additions to the Godwin dynasty
– Fixed a bug with Primogeniture when tracing back through the current holder’s mother
– Fixed a very rare crash with Holdings with no holder
– Fixed an issue with inheritance by landless characters when there was no de jure vassal title they could take off the previous holder
– Diplo AI: Much more careful about imprisonments
– Imprisoning characters no longer affects their position in the line of succession
– Fixed a bug with the event pictures on Mac and Linux
– Added blinded trait to historically blind characters in the database
– Added missing space to Armenian dynasty prefix and Irish male patronym
– Byzantine, Armenian and Georgian character fixes and additions
– Fixed wrong liege for Duchy of Champagne and County of Gevaudan at certain dates
– Welsh/Hiberno-Norse Dublin character fixes and additions
– New dynasty for the Kurdish Shaddadids, extended Mirdasid pedigree
– On player agreement, the game now sends information to the Paradox backend when you start a game, containing the names of the DLCs and Mods you run (can be toggled with “dont_track_data = [yes/no]” in settings.txt)
– AI: The leader of a claimant faction will no longer leave the faction in an elective realm where the claimant is currently the heir
– AI: Fixed a slight bug where current heirs would not back claimant factions for themselves
– Spymaster Scheme job has been overhauled and simplified
– AI: Fixed an issue with the number of available galleys check
– Fixed an issue with part of the de jure drift mechanic not being cleared on resign

FOR MODDERS:
– The criterion for determining who can lead troops is now determined by the allow trigger for ‘job_marshal’ (so women can now be modded to lead armies)
– Added trigger ‘is_adult’
– Added trigger ‘is_marriage_adult’

2012-10-22: v1.07b
———————–

– Fixed an issue with broken portraits and other graphics on certain older graphics cards
– Fixed a bug with Claimant Faction wars becoming invalid in Elective Realms
– Fixed a bug where various Dynasty variables would not be correctly reset on resign, which could even cause crashes
– Fixed the initial tech levels in the Nestorian and Miaphysite provinces
– Fixed a crash bug in the religion view that could happen when your ruler’s religion changed
– Fixed a bug with Gavelkind succession in Empires where the holder also had many kingdoms
– Fixed an issue where you could become independent by joining an independence faction war in another realm
– Kurds now have access to the Persian cultural building
– William the Conquerer no longer set as mother of three Breton characters
– Fixed the history for c_aprutium
– Fixed deathdate of character 161537
– Fixes/additions to the Strathearn dynasty
– Fixes to the counts of Malta
– Fixed broken de Mello dynasty
– Various additions/fixes to several English dynasties
– Various additions/fixes to several German dynasties
– Renamed duplicate Onega province
– Added rulers to various Eastern pagan provinces
– Spymaster can now use Scheme in provinces belonging to your liege’s other vassals
– Fixed hunting event to correctly apply to barons
– Fixed an ugly “invalidated war” message showing messy trigger conditions
– No longer possible to start or join Factions while in revolt against your current liege
– Fixed an issue where a vassal revolt war could sometimes invalidate on mostly unrelated other revolts in the same realm
– Fixed a glitch with the tooltip on the “Start a Faction” button
– No longer allowed to start claimant factions for female claimants against Agnatic law titles
– Fixed an issue with Protected Inheritance
– Reduced size of all event pictures by 25% at no loss of quality
– Muslim Jihads no longer possible before 1187
– The title is now displayed correctly for Russian Grand Princesses
– Some changes to the religious setup in the Levant

2012-10-16: v1.07
———————–

MAJOR:
– Faction System
– Characters can have both a Plot and an Ambition
– Retinue System support for the Legacy of Rome DLC
– Orthodox and related religions have Autocephalous Patriarchs and the Pentarchy
– Rebalanced Combat, with more focus on leaders and their traits. More leader traits.
– Liege levies. You only raise levies from your direct vassals, and they are not directly connected to Holdings.
– A number of self improvement Ambitions for characters
– New religions: Miaphysite, Nestorian, Monothelite
– Two new Bookmarks: The Alexiad and The Latin Empire
– AI: Improved military AI
– Major speed optimizations
– Greatly reduced graphics memory load
– Plugged some memory leaks
– New events for characters with the lunatic trait
– Spymaster’s Discover Plots job has been renamed to Scheme, and now also affects faction membership
– New icons added to all decisions

MINOR:
– Launcher now remembers DLC and Mod settings
– Very large savegames can now be sent to clients in multiplayer
– Now always allowed to move capital back to the traditional capital of your primary title (even if you’ve moved capital once already)
– You now always need at least two kingdom titles to create an Empire
– Fixed several bugs with Gavelkind and Primogeniture succession
– Fixed some issues with the Supply Limit and attrition rules
– It’s no longer possible to place councillors in grayed out provinces
– Many, many changes and fixes to the history database
– Character View: Selecting an ambition now auto-updates the window
– Added ticking war score to Claim All wars
– Made the Seljuks pre-mobilized in 1066, like the English contenders
– Added portrait tooltip about a character’s religious head
– Added code for locking Constantinople to the Emperor better
– Adjusted the colors of some duchies and kingdoms, mainly in Eastern Anatolia
– Fixed the ship unit position in Lake Mälaren
– Added “Foreign Conqueror” opinion modifier
– Ormond is no longer a republic
– Improved some trigger and event target tooltips
– Fixed some issues with the “change succession law” CBs against secondary kingdoms
– No longer allowed to press Muslim women’s claims against anyone
– No longer allowed to press other women’s claims on _any_ titles against a ruler with Agnatic succession
– Fixed a problem with law triggers in decisions
– All casus belli event effects are now also initialized properly, so they can refer to laws
– Characters in feudal realms will not flee to republics or theocracies when exiled
– In republics, courtiers who are heirs to foreign titles can no longer be elected
– Gave William the Conqueror three more castles at game start and adjusted the initial armies of all three contenders
– The liege is now imprisoned when losing his or her primary title in a claimant war
– When creating a new higher tier title in the game, your current laws will be copied (if it’s not Duke-to-King)
– When creating a new higher tier title that has never had a holder before, its holder history will be copied from your current title
– Plot View: Fixed an issue where Vassal Decisions could be listed twice
– Plot View: Fixed a bug with the tooltip on the Start Plot button
– Fixed the tooltip for effects ‘remove_title’
– Fixed the tooltip for effects ‘give_job_title’
– Fixed some bugs with the ‘spawn_unit’ tooltip
– Portraits: All characters are now bald if they wear the chain mail hood
– 1066: Adjusted the traits of the main Saxon lords to like Eadgar the Aetheling a lot
– The end game screen now shows the correct Komnenos dynasty shield
– Added proper claims and ruler history for Tostig Godwinson
– The loser in an invasion CB is now imprisoned by the winner if he becomes a vassal of the winner
– Made the Varangian Guard better
– Added tooltips to the Flank Leader selection view
– Fixed a bug where children of Western ethnicity would not look it if of another culture
– Fixed some bugs with graphical culture type of characters not correctly falling back to Western
– The Golden Horde now receives slightly fewer reinforcements in the second event
– Fixed a bug with the opinion penalty for destroying a title
– Combat events no longer happens the first few days anymore
– The Ambitions to have a son or daughter now increases fertility
– Tweaked fertility effect on impregnation
– Religious wars and Jihads/Crusades now reduce the Decadence for all successful participating Muslims
– Tweaked some default message priorities
– You now only get a Weak Claim on titles that have been revoked
– You are no longer allowed to usurp titles from others in the same realm unless you have a Strong Claim
– Fixed a bug where you could ask to join the wars of your liege’s enemies
– Muslim Invasion CB outcomes now also affect Decadence
– Fixed a bug with the “Weaken Fellow Vassal” Plot, where the target could go independent when losing his last Duchy
– Fixed an assymmetric hostility issue vs revolters of an ally of someone you’re attacking
– The “No Ambition” alert should no longer appear if there are no valid ambitions to pick
– Fixed a bug with white text showing in some event windows
– Fixed a bug where the AI could ask to educate children of vassals who were actually ’employed’ by the vassal’s Spouse
– Fixed a bug in the portrait tooltip, where it did not always list the highest title a character was heir to
– Fixed some issues with the wrong event frame being shown for some Knights of St John events- A liege no longers retains any imprison or revoke title reasons against rebel vassals when losing a civil war
– Decadence revolts now only disband the earmarked regiments when they end- Fixed a bug making Holy Orders theocracies
– Added missing clergy clothes for other graphical cultures
– Fixed a bug with dead character portraits not looking correct when loading save games
– Many new CoAs, courtesy of Txini
– Fixed some glitches with the inheritance of Councillors
– Fixed a rare bug with wars ending “inconclusively” just before they ended normally
– Added more war invalidation explanations to the message
– Slightly toned down the size of Decadence revolters
– Pressing the claim of a dynasty member will now always vassalize him or her if possible
– Fixed a bug with the tooltip for normal AND triggers
– Titles are now also considered contested if a title de facto above them is contested
– Tweaked Title Creation and Usurpation tooltips
– Fixed a bug where revolters could remain in an ongoing uprising even after no longer being part of the realm
– Crushing a major revolt now gives all direct vassal rulers a +25 opinion modifier of you for 10 years
– When you White Peace revolters, they now get a ‘Spared after Rebellion’ opinion modifier of you, +25 for 10 years
– Fixed a bug where a legitimized bastard would hate the parent for doing it
– The Mongol reinforcements no longer arrive if the Horde has already been completely defeated
– Fixed some issues with characters getting opinion modifiers of themselves
– Added beard portrait scripts
– Added missing string about not being able to revoke the last Temple Holding off your own religious head
– Fixed two bugs with landless Mongols not declaring war
– Claimant Wars: if the claimant is a bishop or mayor, those titles are now lost on success
– Wars over titles are now more likely to give the title capital to the claimant
– No longer possible to declare depose liege, or claimant wars on liege while the liege or above is himself in revolt
– Fixed a bug where vassals could nominate successors for secondary duchies or below
– Made the basic “Recently Conquered” tax penalty more severe, so it cannot be offset by tech, etc
– A ward who is at war with his or her guardian now automatically returns home
– Fixed an issue with the automatic removal of inappropriate scripted traits from underage historical characters
– Independent kingdoms with a king that controls their entire de jure area can now break out of de jure empires
– No longer possible to employ Holy Orders while excommunicated
– Fixed a bug with the tooltips for triggers ‘lower_tier_than’ and ‘higher_tier_than’
– You no longer pay maintenance for Holy Orders if you’re in a justified war, even if you’re also in another type of war
– Fixed an issue where you could not grant titles to vassals which you could not formally create
– Gave most mercs and holy orders a base culture
– Ensured that merc and holy order leaders are always of the right culture and religion
– Slowed down event ‘39500’ which automatically converts counties to Islam
– Fixed a bug where you could move your capital again after a reload
– Fixed a bug where a landed spouse who is the councillor of another ruler would not give you that attribute bonus
– The Excommunicate diplo action is no longer shown for excommunicated characters
– Fixed an issue with granting titles including lower not fully working if the target becomes independent from you through the action
– Blocked Agnatic-Cognatic succession for Hordes
– Horde type culture rulers cannot have Cognatic or True Cognatic succession laws
– Improved kingdom division on inheritance kingdom split
– Fixed a bug with characters not knowing of their own plots
– Fixed a bug with the de facto liege of titles after revocation
– Fixed a bug with the succession bethrothal icon not showing
– Fixed a bug allowing you to assign too many wards to a guardian
– Boosted the effect of the Chancellor’s Improve Diplomatic Relations job
– Corrected many spelling mistakes
– Added a notification event when a character is killed in battle
– Both sides in a siege now see the effects of triggered siege events
– The event where a vassal offers guardianship now shows which child will become the vassal’s ward
– Fixes to the Christian and Muslim tournaments
– Famous Muslims who join your court now have dynasties and improved stats
– Scottish names are now English instead of Gaelic, whereas before they were a mixture of both
– Russian duchies are now called grand principalities, and their rulers are referred to as grand princes
– Fixed the event where the Hashshashin go after the Mongol leader
– Revised Combat tooltips
– Muslim Heavy cavalry now use CoA colors on their flags rather than the christian flag
– Revised cultural building modifiers
– Added a global supply limit modifier that increases with tech
– Ruler Designer now handles culture different from ethnicity
– Loading screens and flags now look a bit better
– Fixed issue with special characters in find title box
– Flanks will now pick tactics even if they have no leader
– You are no longer allowed to build in settlements held by someout outside your realm or by someone you are at war with
– Fixed some trigger tooltips that looked bad
– Added the winners of the AAR contest as characters in the game
– AI: Smarter about heir nomination when having multiple kingdoms (to keep them together)
– AI: Fixed bug with silly Muslim handing out of titles
– AI: Baron tier and landless characters now get a complete AI when they have raised units on the map
– AI: Fixed an issue where it could spam a player asking to become a vassal
– AI: Holy Orders should no longer run off to help others if they are already “hired”
– AI: Will always accept guardians for childen offered by the Regent (and won’t have them replaced on its own)
– AI: Improved passing of demesne laws
– AI: Should now want to revoke a Castle Holding when the primary holding in a County is NOT a Castle
– AI: Prevented some stupid placing of the Chancellor to fabricate claims
– AI: Vassals will no longer spontaneously declare war on their liege to depose him or take a title off him (these things are now faction based.) The only time they might declare war on their own is to create a succession crisis.
– AI: Improved handing out of counties if it’s over the demesne limit
– AI: Will now execute “vassal decisions” (like blinding and castrating prisoners)
– AI: Will now switch Guardian for children if appropriate (wrong religion or culture)
– AI: Will not disband free galleys (from event effects)
– AI: Fixed some bugs with turning betrothals into marriages
– AI: More careful with title usurpation and the cost in gold
– Diplo AI: Fixed a bug with “divine blood” marriage calculation
– Diplo AI: Does not care about Matrilineal marriage factors if both parties are from the same dynasty
– Diplo AI: Children in other realms will now still accept education offers from their own parents
– Diplo AI: Fixed a bug with borked marriage proposals and spamming
– Diplo AI: Less aggressive about revoking titles (requires a worse opinion or religious enmity)
– Diplo AI: Will now break betrothals that won’t be accepted anymore
– Diplo AI: will not revoke titles while under a regency
– Diplo AI: Early surrender now possible with Muslim invasion CBs. Defender more stubborn.

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FOR MODDERS:
– IMPORTANT: Added ‘inherit_chance’ to traits, replacing ‘congenital’
– The ‘replace_path’ bug is now fixed for real
– Added ‘effect’ character history command. It’s like an event option that’s run for the character at game start.
– Fixed a bug with ‘immortal’ traits and sex appeal
– Added trigger ‘leads_faction’
– Added trigger ‘faction_power’
– Added trigger and effect ‘any_faction_backer’
– Added trigger ‘completely_controls = [title]’ (I or my vassals hold everything in it)
– Added trigger ‘revolt_distance’
– The ‘ai_will_do’ clause in Decisions is no longer binary (the value determines the MTTH)
– Fixed an issue with law triggers in the ‘ai_will_do’ field of decisions
– Added trigger ‘in_faction’
– Added trigger ‘war_title’
– Added trigger ‘defending_against_claimant’
– Added event targets ‘supported_claimant’ and ‘supported_claimant_title’
– Added ‘set_parent_religion’ effect
– Can now create Lowborn characters with the ‘create_character’ effect
– Fixed a bug with scripted attributes in the ‘create_character’ effect
– Fixed a bug in the ‘conquest_culture’ trigger
– Added ‘is_conquered’ trigger
– Added event targets ‘heir_under_seniority_law’ and ‘heir_under_primogeniture_law’
– Added trigger ‘any_claimant’
– Added ‘from_potential’ trigger to decisions (vassal and dynasty decisions only)
– Added event effect ‘add_spouse_matrilineal’
– Added ‘opinion_diff’ trigger
– The event targets ‘owner’ and ‘holder_scope’ are now the same and work on both titles and provinces
– Added event effect ‘copy_title_history’
– Added event effect ‘copy_title_laws’
– Fixed a bug with trigger ‘is_landed = no’
– Fixed a bug in the effect ‘spawn_unit’ with the ‘match’ argument
– Can now set a specific leader in the effect ‘spawn_unit’
– Fixed a bug in trigger ‘de_jure_liege_or_above’
– Fixed a bug in trigger ‘de_jure_vassal_or_below’
– Fixed some bugs with the ‘set_name’ effect
– The ‘set_name’ effect can now change the name of titles
– Added ‘capital’ effect
– Added ‘province_capital’ effect
– Added effect ‘participation_scaled_decadence’
– Added trigger ‘num_of_faction_backers’
– Added trigger ‘race’
– Added trigger ‘graphical_culture’
– Fixed a bug with event name spaces not working in ‘events’ fields in On Actions
– Fixed a bug with event name spaces not working in ‘events’ fields in Job Actions
– Added ‘divine_blood’ marriage opinion modifiers
– Added more gradual Attrition Defines
– Added ‘secondary_graphical_culture’ to cultures and culture groups (a fallback option, when not having certain DLCs)
– Added trigger ‘has_earmarked_regiments’
– Added ‘earmark’ argument to the ‘spawn_unit’ event effect
– The ‘disband_event_forces’ effect now takes an earmark argument
– Added trigger ‘diplomatic_immunity’
– Added effect ‘diplomatic_immunity’
– Exported PORTRAIT_MID_AGE_THRESHOLD, PORTRAIT_OLD_AGE_THRESHOLD, PORTRAIT_ADULT_MALE_AGE_THRESHOLD and PORTRAIT_ADULT_FEMALE_AGE_THRESHOLD to defines
– Exported AGE_OF_MARRIAGE to defines
– Ported the last old defines to lua
– Added SeaZone province text promotion
– Added PrevPrev text promotion
– Added trigger ‘is_tribal_type_title’
– Added trigger ‘has_horde_culture

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Giving a power to the descendants is one of the most game's element. The most comfortable situation is of course, when the crown come straight from the king to the oldest son, without any voting and additional problems (like fratricidal fights). Unfortunately, the reality of Crusader Kings II is rarely comfortable and steady. Characters constantly throwing the logs under the player's legs, forcing him to think and balancing between influence zones. It's even more problematic since the succession laws can be changed only after completing six assumptions:

* actual ruler didn't change any succession law earlier

* he has reigned at least from 10 years

* there is a peace

* there is no regency

* vassals aren't fighting between themselves

* all vassals have positive opinion about the sovereign

Completing all of this assumption is a hard task, so in the Problem? section you may find few useful tips.

Every kingdom you possess can have individual succession laws. 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. Its consequences is a fact, that after taking the power in particular domain, you have to usually try to make a proper position for your descendants.

There are no doubts, that some political systems are more profitable for the monarch than the others. On next pages you'll read about all available succession laws. This issue is often problematic for the players, so I'll pay an attention to it.

Primogeniture

Primogeniture is a rule according to which, the oldest son of the monarch takes all of father's titles. It's the most comfortable option from the available (of course from the player's perspective), but it causes much of rumors between monarch's sons. This fact gives a reason to have a minimal number of masculine descendants and few daughters (jump to the chapter House: Basics). Primogenitural model meets also a big aversion of nobles, so it's possible to realization only in countries with strong central power.

Son of Ingegerd and her husband (player) will inherit the throne after murdering Magnus, Olaf and Haralda.

Primogeniture is the simplest and the most intuitive system of succession, useful not only for kings but also for players who want to climb on the career levels. If this system is the actual one in the country, it's enough to marry one of ruler's daughter and then kill all her brothers and older sisters. In that way the second or the third generation you will gain the crown. More about it, you'll find in House: Marriages.

Thanks to the marriage with the queen of Norway, poor count may provide a crown of Scandinavian country to his son.

Primogeniture requires high or absolute crown authority.

Seniority

Seniority is a law according to which the oldest member of the family inherit all titles of the dead sovereign. It's very uncomfortable rule, because makes the oldest one is a successor and white-haired characters tend to die quickly what causes a chaos in the country. All the more that during the few first years of new ruler's reign there is a bigger probability of vassal's rebellion. In such case, the greatest danger for the player is his oldest son, who will try hard to take over the power and without hesitation starts civil war or coup d'etat. What is curious, often it's profitable to let him win, because the young has a chance to change the political system if that's why he began the war.

If you aren't patience enough to slaughter dozen members of the family, you may begin the war for the rights for your favorite one.

Taking over the power in such country is rather problematic (if you want to make it in the peaceful way). Usually you have to follow the family tree of the House you are interested in and then find the common ground (moment, when the man from your House and the woman from the chosen one have a marriage). Next you have to count all persons above this point. All those persons should have been killed or distributed a bishopric. Then you should get rid of all men in this House. Only at this point taking over will be possible, what, as you can see, isn't that simple. What is more, the situation is even more complicated if the country has a agnatic succession law. In such cases the only way is the matrylinear wedding, which is rarely acceptable for the men. That's why an open war is often the better solution.

Requires medium, high or absolute crown authority.

Feudal elective

Feudal elective is a rather common and simultaneously very problematic political system. Electors voting decides who will seize the power after the sovereign from all the vassals (ruling family members and king's council are also taken into consideration). Such fact makes the crown going from one House to another, what plunges the country in the chaos.

Electors are not only landowners but also members of the ruling family.

Electors are always the persons standing a level lower than the ruler. So when it's about king's succession the electors are all dukes, archbishops and doges. Similarly: about dukes decide counts, village headmen and duke-bishops and about counts: majors, barons and bishops. The only exception are emperors who have to take into account not only votes of kings but also dukes with the biggest amount of lands. Besides all those people, right of vote and election have also members of the ruling House.

Description of all feudal ladder you may find in Glossary: Titles.

In big countries election is the worst possible political system - you have to change it quickly.

If the ruler has a big authority within his vassals, elective system isn't his biggest problem, because everyone will vote just like he wants to. It's much worse if there are different groups of agents of other monarchs in the country. There is no chance for agreement and losing of the crown is almost sure. In such way you should change the system or bribe electors with moneys and land distribution. Despite pretences the first way is much more profitable.

Imprisoned electors still have a right to vote (an icon of the crown at the right).

Taking over the country with such system is quite a challenge. Family links has almost no meaning in this case, it only means that the player can be a one of the electors or ruler's relative. It results from this that if you're playing as a duke inside a kingdom with such political system, gaining a crown should be relatively easy. In worse situation are the Houses outside the kingdom, because they cannot be electors and seizure the power is almost impossible (at least to the moment, when they become a ruler's vassal).

If you're an elector, you should convince counter candidates of you and then kill the king - the crown will be yours.

Requirements: none

Gavelkind

Gavelkind is the most common way of inheritance. It divides father's land on parts for every son, but the oldest one is a sovereign (e.g. first-born became a king and his younger brothers dukes). It's much more comfortable than the seniority and election but less profitable than primogeniture. The basic problem here is a size of the family. The more men descendants, the more dismembered the kingdom is. To prevent it, you should develop your House properly ( House: Basics). Some plus of gavelkind is a fact that the ruler can possess 30% more estates without penalties to the prestige for sons without land.

1. Invite third rate duke of Croatia on the court. 2. Arrange the matrylinear marriage between him and your daughter. 3. Kill all the older brothers of the prince. 4. Play as a prince's son, who is a Croatia king.

Gavelkind isn't a problem for players who try to takeover the power thanks to the marriages, just do like in the case of the primogeniture (screen above). After gaining the crown, it's worth to strengthen the position of your House.

Requirements: none

Agnatic Succession

A law, according to which only men can inherit. It's the most comfortable option from all, because it protects the kingdom from the enemy's intrigues. It's not hard to see that the kingdom with such political system can't pass to the other House thanks to the marriages. Unless you agree on matrylinear marriage, what is a very stupid idea.

Men succession makes good in all political systems.

The biggest flaw of such succession is a great risk, because when all of your masculine members of family dies you'll lose the rights to the kingdom in which agnatic succession is obligatory. So be careful and have at least two masculine descendants (House: Basics).

Agnatic-Cognatic Succession

According to this law, women can inherit only in the situation when there is no masculine descendants. It's the most common preference of the sex, which guarantees safety to the family but makes enemy's intrigues easier. Thanks to that rule acquiring the crown is relatively easy, it's enough to marry king's daughter and kill all her brothers and older sisters.

On the Iberian Peninsula accumulating power thanks to the marriages is a simple thing.

Absolute Cognatic Succession

According to that law, women inherit the crown at the same rules what men. Only characters with Basque culture can take this option, but it isn't any quality. The main problem with the absolute cognatic consist in that just few men agrees to the matrylinear weddings, which are the only ones profitable for a player in this situation.

Especially problematic is a situation in which there is a queen. If she had a normal wedding, all her children will inherit house after the father. As you can easily imagine, such situation may lead to the instant failure. On the other hand, if you play the character from the outside, in such way you may easily expand your territory.

With the latest Holy Fury DLC, Paradox Interactive's 2012 grand strategy game, Crusader Kings 2, now has 15 major expansions, and for someone who's either just getting into the game today or wants to pick it back up, it can be terribly daunting to try and figure out which, if any, of those expansion packs is worth the money and which ones are just going to add features that you'll never use.

And while the answer to this is “depends on your playstyle”, there are nonetheless certain DLC packs that add so many great features to the game that it doesn't matter if you're playing as a Norse pagan in Sweden or a Brahmin in India, you're still going to love what the DLC has to offer.

With that in mind, we'll go ahead and rank all 15 DLC releases from “if you don't have this DLC, you're missing out on the true value of the whole game” to “don't bother”.

Essential DLC

1. The Old Gods

This isn't just author bias: The Old Gods is the gateway DLC that makes just about all of the other major CK2 DLC packs that aren't about the monotheistic religions work.

Want to play as the Mongols? If you want Tengri factions, the religion of the early inhabitants of that part of the world, you'll need The Old Gods. Want to play as a Lithuanian or a Finn with the Romuva or Suomenuosko faiths? Old Gods. Want to fight back the advance of Islam and restore Zoroastrianism in Persia? You guessed it, Old Gods.

With this expansion, large swaths of the map become playable, and where there's large swaths of map, there's a need to get the DLC that unlocks them.

The Old Gods expansion also provides an 867 AD start date, right at the height of the Viking Age; even though it's been largely superseded by Charlemagne's 769 start, it's still two centuries more of history per playthrough.

This DLC is so much fun in its own right and unlocks so much fun in other DLC packs that tend to require it, that there's no reason not to get it. CK2 just isn't right without it.