CKII: holiday in Venice

[Shabbaman]

And we're back to our regular schedule: playing Crusader Kings II. This time I'll be trying the features from the republic DLC, which makes trade republics playable. This is cool because:
-I suppose the game will be more about the economy instead of feudal marriage crap. It's the economy, stupid!
-trade republics are elective, so there is a bit of a minigame between different families, Romeo&Julia style.
-republics are the new hotness, monarchies are so 1672.

You might've guessed what republic I picked, but a lot of thought has gone into picking Venice. My preference would be the Hansa, but that'd mean I'd start as a vassal of the HRE again... and I've seen enough of the HRE. With Venice being on an island I figured I should be safe from bullying emperors. Let's see how that works out.

So now I'm playing as Domenico Contarini. Starting the game I notice two messages at the top of the screen: I am unmarried, and I get to form a duchy. Duchy... wait what? I'll ignore that (for now at least), and I'll find me a genius wife to start the Contarini Breeding Programme. The first good thing about playing a republic: you don't get a rep hit for marrying common people (although you have to pay if you want to marry a noblewoman), so finding good DNA is easy. I notice I also have a bunch of sons, none of them with any good traits. Oh well, can't have it all.

Now I figure out what it is I could do. I have no gold, no army and no claims. Hm. At least I can send my council on missions for free... I have something resembling an income, though it's just as bad as any common duchy start. So I wait for a year, see some galleys sunk by bad weather (lose 50 gold), see some luck with trading (gain 100 gold), and get the appropiate amount of gold to build my first tradepost:



So what's this? I build a trade post and get filthy rich? If by filthy you mean "you don't have money for soap", then yes. This trade post earns me around 10g... per year. Somehow investing 159.6g for 10g/y return doesn't seem so good to me, but hey, this is what you're supposed to do as a republic so I'll roll with it.

I've build my first trade post in Zadar. Or Zara, depending where you're coming from. Zara was important for Venice, it was one of their first "colonies". Fun fact: the venetians got the crusaders of the 4th crusade to besiege Zara for them, because the crusaders couldn't pay for their ship passage in coin. Then they proceeded to sack Byzantium. I doubt I'll get to that (I've yet to see the ERE or HRE crumble like they historically did), but it's an enticing prospect. But the main reason I build there was because I was on holiday there two years ago. Pretty city, with Venetian city walls and all.

So now what? Well, I've increased my income by 10 g/y, so the waiting time for the next trade post will be significantly less. I build a couple more trade posts. While the game is running at triple speed, I'm browsing through the different menus. The republic screen shows the status of the different families, including successor status. If I put a bit of money in the campaign fund, my son is assured of succession:



In the same screen I found that I can upgrade my home. Fun. All upgrades cost money. And I have none. There are two upgrades that have economic value: a personal vault, and an improved palace. I always wanted a personal vault, so I build one. It's also the cheaper of the two.

At this point I discover that there's apparently a limit to the number of trade posts you can build. This seems odd to me, since Genoa was spamming trade posts at the north sea coast in my previous game. I had send my chancellor to improve relations in Djukla (no money for pushing forged claims anyway), because better relations mean cheaper trade posts. But when I wanted to build one... I had exceeded the limit. I discover that having adult male family members in your court increase the amount of trade posts. Somehow the Contarini family is wandering all over Italy, so I invite a couple of them back to court and continue spamming. Unfortunately having more of those males at court means you have to split profit (in other words: pay upkeep), and they cost more than the trade post provides. Derp. I upgrade some of the trade posts, though the return on investment is calculated in centuries, not years. There has to be another way to increase revenue.

While waiting for more gold I'm training my map staring skills, and I notice the HRE moves it's capital. You might remember this guy:



Clearly the AI is better at this game than I am

By now I'm getting bored: I want to do stuff. My army is still pitiful, and I cannot afford mercenaries. Improving trade posts also increases my retinue cap, so once I invest 200g I get a retinue of 500 men. That's a huge step from where I'm now, so that's the plan for the short term. Improving levies seems a poor plan. I still haven't completely figured out retinue upkeep, but I think it's still cheaper than mercenaries. At least the first 500 men, getting more than that doesn't seem viable for now (but neither is hiring mercenaries). Coincidentally I discovered/remembered that it's possible to make your wife spymaster. And intrigue is still cheap!



Eliminating the heads of the other families seems a viable strategy to me.

Now that I have a somewhat decent army, I decide it's time to expand my territory. I had played a bit with the unique CB's: you get a claim on territory if there's a trade post. And you can attack rival trade republics at will. Seems fun (once you get an army). Still, even with an army, most lords will have a larger army. Luckily for me this is Crusader Kings II, and most of the time there's a succession war going on somewhere. At first I pushed a claim for a trade post from another venetian family, but that doesn't seem worthwhile to me (although trade post placement cost is relative to the distance to the closest venetian territory, so it's still worthwhile) and I noticed that most money still comes from demesne, not trade... (LAME) so making my rivals rich will not be part of my winning strategy. So, step two of my masterplan, I push my claim on the county Zadar as soon as the kingdom of Croatia is in some crisis:



That wasn't so hard. Now, old Domenico dies and is succeeded by his second son. Yay.