CK2 is the most CHAD and ALPHA game to grace the earth, in no other game can you go from a virgin to an alpha, the possibilities are endless and it is very hard to get bored at it,

Crusader Kings II is a medieval role-play game, i dont care what anyone else says, this is not a strategy game this is an rp game

in Crusader Kings II you take the role of a (most likely) christian european ruler, the ranks from highest to lowest being:
Emperor
King
Duke
Count
anything above those levels can rule anything below those levels, thats called feudalism
of course you can play any other kinds of kingdoms stretching from iberia, subsaharan africa, the middle east, persia, central asia, india, and tibet

sorry weebs, no japan, believe me im sad too

good question my student, you see, there are several ways to go about it

ingame tutorial ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SUUUUCCCKKKSSSS!!!!
PIRACY IS A CRIME. PURCHASE ALL CRUSADER KINGS II DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT LEGALLY.

SO, how do you learn ck2 then without the ingame tutorial? what i HIGHLY recommend is not going in headfirst and dying to your stupid political enemies, but instead start at the lowest, a count? no, even lower!!!

there's a mod that i learned with called "rise to power" in the workshop, i highly recommend starting a game, rping a little, and most importantly learning how to use the intrigue menu which is what the mod is circulating around!!!

if you start as a bastard lowborn, then like, literally 90% of the features you dont worry about, and instead you will learn to use the intrigue menu, interact with others, and in general get the hardest part out of the way without worrying about taxes and boring ♥♥♥♥, so thats step 2! download that mod and mess around in it a little, read up on its wiki to see what to do too, if you're feeling a bit more advanced you can mix that mod with the "sketchy cheat menu" too which will let you do cheats nd stuff, which will take us into the next section!

now that you've messed around in the rise to power mod, lets get more serious, now combine that mod with the "sketchy cheat menu" mod, that mod will teach you the important aspects of ck2 in a way you would never believe,

from there, if you're cocky enough, load up another ck2 game WITHOUT rise to power and pick any king, then mess around with sketchy cheat menu as a maniac god until you understand the mechanics more

now that you understand the basic mechanics without the real struggle, lets become a crusader king!

bookmark start charlemange (or iron century if DLC-less)

i recommend either playing as mumu which is always in southern ireland for the first game as they usually start off with decent land and such

ireland is generally regarded as noob island, literally nobody from the outside world will bother you, as far as you're concerned your world revolves around ireland, here you will lean how to manage your own land and how to be a diplomat to other rules too, generally speaking, this is largely trial and error and thats the beauty of it,

tribals are basically just an easier version of feudals,when i say "trial and error" i really mean it, there is little you can do to directly ♥♥♥♥ up, its an rp game anyways,

my general strategy is using your army to raid your neighbors, get a lot of gold/prestiege, and eventually invade them too

dont forget to give out land and stuff, keeping your vassals happy is the cornerstone to a successful game, once you successfully unify ireland under the kingdom of ireland, you'll know you're ready to move on

any self respecting medieval nerd knows the HRE, love them or hate them they were kinda big deal, this is why your next step is becoming it!!!!

bookmark date, iron century, otto I of germany, play as him.

now, the beginning is kind of on tracks, you will have a scripted civil war and a scripted war with france (always accept going to war) so in the beginning make sure you do literally nothing and wait for the civil war to pass,

civil war is pretty easy if you've kept up with the ireland unification, right away you want to get your army centered and your good commanders in, focus on battles more than capturing castles

from there, chill out a few years, my recommendation for focus around this time is carousing, make your most powerful vassals your friends incase ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan they wont turn against u

from there, after the war, you will want to invade italy too which can only be done with a regency, you can either be very fast with everything and pray for the king to die (or assassinate him) or have to wait around for a child king, which you can speed up by also assassinating

from there, you will form HRE, and HRE is a MESS at first, but here's the thing, the #1 strategy of CK2 is this, shift your noble laws to be slightly tax orientated, and send gifts to those who dont like you, within 2 generations everyone will have an opinion of 100 if you do this right

a second tip with this too, buy favors, call in council support, pass stuff like the pope cant appoint bishops, and title revocation (you will want to revoke ppls titles after civil wars)

with pope cant appoint bishops (its called free inveniture or something) you can create an antipope in the religion tab, with this you can declare war on the pope, and if you're an emperor, when you do and you make your antipope the pope he will be your vassal and have high opinion, from there you can ask him to grant you claims on land and he will 90% of the time, its great, i once had all of germania, france, italy, and poland under my control in my best game, great times

KIND OF

congrats king, if you followed my guide on how i learned im proud of you, of course if you have more questions dm me here or on discord, but overall this is just the surface!!!

you have learned to play as a crusader king, not an easy feat, but now the possibilities are endless, you can be a viking, a caliph, a mongol, a rahjah, its great

most of these play pretty similar to each other with trivial differences

happy hunting gamer,