Hello, how nice that you decided to check out this tutorial! Be aware of that this tutorial was made back in the summer of 2012 and there are some features which have changed. Also if you would like to see the video tutorial, check here:

You´ve probably, as I once did found out about this game called Crusader Kings 2 and thought: “Yay this looks awesome let´s buy this and conquer the world” only to find yourself after 20 minutes losing in three wars. Then you start wondering: how do I play this game, you check out the tutorials and find them 100 % useless since they´re really bad. Do you find yourself in that situation? Well then this tutorial is for you.

Before we start I will explain how the interface works. At the top left corner you have a portrait of the character which you´re currently playing as. Press the portrait to quickly find information about your current diplomatic situation and your family, note that do start diplomatic engagements with any of the characters in the game you simply right click on the portrait and choose the picture of a scroll. To the right of this portrait we can find 8 blue buttons which I am going to explain what each one of these do :
First we have the picture of a crown which brings you to your council, from here you appoint new councilors or send the ones you already have out on specific missions which I am going to talk more about later.
The second button have a hammer on it and from here we can access the law screen from here you can see your current laws and also try initiate new laws which are more beneficial for you.
The next button shows two cogs and leads you to the technology page, from here you can see your technological advancements and set focus on what to research on next (and don’t worry, the wheel is already invented at the start of the game).
The next button, showing a sword and a shield brings you to the military page. From here you can manage your army and your navy.
The next button which shows a dagger and a letter (what? Seriously?) brings you to the ambition page. From here you can pick either an ambition or a plot which works as a goal in life kind of. The
next button featuring a letter is just another way of getting into diplomacy mode so there is no need of going deeper into that.
The next button features a cross and brings you to the religion page from here you can see information about your state religion.
And finally the last button showing to heads leads you to the character page, giving you information about every character currently alive in the game.
In the top right we have six counters: one shows how much gold you have, the second shows how much prestige you have and the third one shows how much piety you have.
Money is gained overtime, prestige is also gained over time but will be awarded for heroic actions and piety is like the other two also gained over time but comes in bigger portions when you´ve done a religious action.
The forth counter shows the lands you own personally yourself and the fifth counter shows the total number of holdings including you and all your vassals in your empire, kingdom, dukedom or whateverdom . The sixth and final counter shows your score which is all your regents total prestige added together.
Under these counters we have a bar showing the current in game date, month and year. From here you can pause and unpause the game and also speed up or slow down time.
In the right corner of the screen we have a map of the game world and different buttons, which when active shows different types of information on the map. Also good to know is that in the middle top of the screen you find important information which is worth paying attention to but now that we have most of the buttons sorted out, let´s head into more depth.

Let´s start with the council. You have 5 different agents at your disposal which all have various tasks to deal with and special mission you can send them on. Note also that both their opinion of you and their skill at the job they´re currently assigned to makes out their effectiveness in that position.

First we have the chancellor which works like your messenger. He can be sent to provinces to boost your opinion amongst the ruler in that province, he can be sent to fabricate claims in regions to give you a valid reason to invade a province and he can also sow dissent making a vassal angry at their liege and possibly rebel against them.
The marshal is the head of your military, you can send him to suppress revolts amongst your vassals or to train the troops in one of your provinces for a bigger garrison or set him in a province to improve the military technology advancements in that province.
The steward handles your economy, you can send him to collect taxes in a province to gain a tax bonus in that province, you can send him to oversee the construction in a province, making the wait for a building to get finished shorter and can also be sent to research economic tech, which Is pretty self-explanatory.

The spymaster is extremely important for uncovering plots against you and you should also be sure to have a spy master who likes you. You can send him to uncover plots in a province, greatly increasing the chance of finding a plot against you in that province. You can send him to spread rumors in a province, increasing the like hood of an event happening against the lord in that province. And at last he can try to steal technologies from other provinces.
The last man to explain is your court chaplain, he is your head of religion. He can be sent to convert provinces to your state religion, he can be sent to research the cultural tech in a province and at last can be sent to improve relations with the head of religion in any province.

In the law section you can, of course change the laws in your country but you can also view your heir and your pretenders, your heir is the person who would get the crown if you died and the pretenders are the second and third person in row, they tend to be troublemakers.
I won’t go into detail on all the laws but I can at least talk a little about the crown laws: If you have a kingdom or an empire you can have crown laws, you start with minimum crown authority but can work your way up to a larger amount of authority. However note that you can only change one crown law per regent and changing a crown law will give your vassals a -30 opinion penalty against you which will go away later but it´s good to have that in mind before changing any crown laws.

In the technology section you can focus your research in three different areas: military, economic and culture you can also see your advances and the spread of different technologies around the world.

From the military tab you manage your armies. First we have the levies which comes from you and your vassals,
then we have the mercenaries which are armies that you can hire for gold, they are quite expensive and will crash your economy if you don’t have a strong economy. Note also that the mercenaries will disband or even attack you if don’t have any gold to provide them.
After a 100 years or so, holy orders will start popping up, they work like mercenaries but come in bigger numbers and cost piety rather than gold to hire, note however that they won’t fight anyone with the same religion as them. You can also raise your navy which is used as army transportation (I am sorry, no pirates of the Caribbean action here).

From the intrigue window you can pick a plot or an ambition that you want as your goal, from simple things as getting married to big stuff like becoming exalted among men. At the bottom you can see threats against you, prisoners in your dungeon and known plots. The third thing you can do at this page is to make a decision, these usually consists of parties to make your vassals like you more.

The religion page is pretty simple; you can see the head of state and appoint bishops. If you fill the conditions you can also make an antipope and try to replace the current pope.

To be able to play Crusader kings 2 you need to be able to know how the countries work. Take for example France. First we have the counties which Is just a single region. Then we have the duchies which consists of 2 or more counties and then we have the kingdoms which consist of duchies. Therefor the king himself doesn’t own all the land but rather is the land divided out on his vassals. Note also that one region consist of one or more holdings, holdings are for example towns, baronies and churches. You want to give out these smaller holdings on all of your vassals.

Now you might be wondering: *gasp* when are the wars coming? Am I ever going to take a province or what? Yes the wait is finally over, here it comes


The tricky thing in Crusader kings 2 is that you need a reason to declare war (or a casus beli as the game calls it) so you can’t just declare war on whoever you want.
There are several reasons you can have when you want to declare war on someone, I’m going to name a few.
The first and easiest way to declare war on someone is to declare a holy war on that nation however note that this is only possible if the nation have a different state religion than you and note that any other nations with the same religion might join their religious companions against you.
If you have a claim for some reason then you can use that as a reason to declare war this Is by the way why you want to fabricate claims. Note however that you want to choose the claims with green flags: if you see a blue flag beside your war declaration that means that you will NOT get the province/s under your country but just change the ruler.
The third reason is if the ruler is excommunicated but this however won’t give you any lands so it´s pretty useless.
Now that you´ve declared war, raise all your levies. Then zoom out over your land and mark them all in a big box and click so they all go into one province, when everyone is there, mark them again and click on the merge selected armies button, now there will only be one big army.
After this your enemy also probably have raised his men so now march against him to meet him in battle. There are a lot of different factors which affect the outcome of the battle so it differs a lot from battle to battle.
If you won the battle then march against the provinces you´re fighting over. When you arrive in the province you will start a siege. You can either wait out the enemy or try to take the walls. But note that taking the walls is very dangerous and I would recommend at least 8000 troops before trying it.
After a while the war button in the bottom will turn 100% green this means that you have won the war completely now your opponent will accept every peace offer you give him, just be sure to pick the one which suits you the most.
Now you have many more provinces and holdings which you should give away to your vassals.

Now you have finally (probably) captured your first province in the game and can feel proud. If you plan playing a campaign I recommend starting with a big land, this is a hard game so it´s a good idea to start with an easy faction. And keep in mind that this is a deep game and I haven´t explained everything.
bye!