Lighthope

I think four children is fine. The whole idea is to sometimes run the risk of losing your king and getting one of your knights promoted. If you could breed like rabbits, that limits the risk too much. Besides, this isn't really a generational game. That's Crusader Kings. It's always a hassle. But again, limited children. So not surprising. At least your king will usually find a mate on his own if necessary.

You say that the chance of your opponent throwing the game is extremely low, but then you present a scenario that doesn't happen often either and includes actions that throw the game. (Gifting good units to an opponent.) Never played Total War: Warhammer, so don't know how it does work in all that.

Not a good idea. Perhaps the other player wants that country to lose his army so he can move in and sweep up uncontested. That would be boring. Why would you want to do that? That is the whole point of building an army better than your opponent. Even if we take your idea, what units would you "gift"? The peasant ones while you keep the Tier 2 units? I get the motivation behind your idea. It's just unworkable in this type of game.

The problem with that is how do you stop the game for the other players while the two combatants fight it out? Unfortunately, it is unworkable with mutliplayer unless you limit it to just two players. Absolutely not. Defeats the whole purpose of having to raise armies as well as numerical superiority.

That's your king.

Marshals can not die unless killed in battle. Only the king ages and dies, from what I remember.

Yeah, these requests get annoying once you start to get large and have a lot of good relationships.

My understanding was that cavalry was supposed to crush foot soldiers (like archers) while spearmen were supposed to stop cavalry. Sounds like something got missed.

Yeah, just ignore those calls. The worst that will happen is your clerics will drop a few points. I don't even recall if you get a drop in relations with the Papal States. Honestly, there is very little benefit to remaining a good Catholic. If you get excommunicated, you suffer a small moral drop to your army and that is it. (If there is more, I don't remember.) Compare that to being a good Catholic with constant demands for money from the Papal States and wanting you to waste an army to go on crusades. I just ignore everything the pope demands, and if he excommunicates me, ignore that too. It's never been a problem.

I have been screaming about this for a long time. lol

I remember them talking about this, but don't remember what was said. I agree, it's annoying. Workaround is you move your army into a town. Meaning put them into the towns defender slots. Do this when your king is venerable. When he dies, hire a new marshal and then go back and get your army for free.

To sustain a large army, you're going to need food. Otherwise you'll be penalized. Gold is needed to recruit, but not to maintain an army. Though you'll need gold to replenish losses. Levies, as you have discovered, are needed to recruit. Different classes of soldier require different amounts of each. At the beginning of a game, you'll have either a peasant army or one made of Tier 1 soldiers. (Or a mix.) So, depending on how aggressive you want to be will dictate what you will do. Different towns have different resources. No reason to build a farm when a town won't support it. Extremely important!!!!! Be sure to have governors in your towns. There is a ridiculously massive penalty to production in non-governed towns. This takes a bit of getting used to, but it isn't as crippling as it seems. And make sure the right class is governing the right town. Clerics govern towns that you want to provide books and piety from. Merchants govern towns that you want to make gold from. Marshals govern towns that you want to use as army recruitment. You can't "summon" all your armies. That is Crusader Kings thinking. You simply move your army to where you want them to be. Your army is either on the map or in a city. Think Total War rather than Crusader Kings. Gold is your priority. Levies to build an army. And food. You can live without piety. Books are needed to advance the level of your knights. Do that quickly. The AI will. Don't waste your time with Diplomats at the beginning of the game. Not on easy levels anyway. Those are more useful later on. At the very beginning of a game, I usually run four merchants or five merchants to get the gold coming in. After I get my army going, I'll start swapping out merchants for marshals. You can wait on spies. Diplomats..........not on easy difficulties. You'll need one near the beginning in the harder modes. No. Remember, don't bother with farms if the city can't support it. You'll get 100% food efficiency by properly planning your cities. Resources are shared, so don't worry about having to build a barracks in certain cities. If one city you own has iron, all cities have access to it. All that should get you started.

After playing the first one, the new interface takes a bit of getting used to. But it is familiar enough that the learning process is quick. The game is rife with tooltips to help.

You can raise armies in the thousands. You need both the levies and the population. If you try to recruit from a city that has no population, you aren't going to get anything out of them. You're too locked into "how CK does things". This isn't CK. Different game. Different ways to present information. It's a learning process like any new game. Mercenaries are expensive. They always have been. You either save the gold up or don't use them. As your kingdom/economy expands, you'll find you'll have enough gold to do anything you want.

You'll need to provide more information. Read the post at this link, which will tell you what they need to be able to help you.

What is CE? What is steelbook? Why do you need to pre-load it? The game itself isn't that big. Unless you have snail internet. 13 gigs. Is that a lot?

I've played all three Lords of the Realm games. (Don't let's talk about the travesty that was LotR3!) KoH2 is to LotR2 like KoH1 was to LorR1. If you saw similarities between the first group, you'll see similarities between the second group.

I actually didn't notice until after. lol

So...this is related to Knights of Honour how? Or are you just spamming your kickstarter?

I don't see that happening. That's too much minute detail for something that yields little reward for a lot of programming.

I think I know what you're suggesting. I guess I could go along with it. Just like other events that pop up from time to time.

That is what the cleric is for.

No price yet https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/736820/view/5453324100732668613

They did say "days, not weeks". Gonna be a week soon.

I don't think the developers would want to invest the programming time into a boost of piety, which has to be coded to end at a certain point. How about your cleric dies, is named a Saint, and you get a one-off bonus of piety? Easier to programme, and a nice flavour-thing. I could go for that as part of a larger DLC.