Beginner's Guide: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/n5-AZZdp1dHLiX0.html HEADS UP: De Jure claims are locked behind a technology at the 867 level, I forgot to mention this! Thank you all so much for watching! In my excitement to record the video, I totally forgot to cover prisoners, ransoming, and other bits of war. Would you guys prefer this in its own video on War itself? Or is it easy enough to understand within the game? I figure most of you have already gotten that part, but the actual combat itself can be very convoluted so I wanted to peel back the layers on it. If you haven't picked up the game, you can grab it through my link here: www.nexus.gg/italianspartacus . This helps me out a TON as it gives a direct commission to the channel, and depending on what time you see this, a discount to you as well.

This game is so complicated, but so fun! over 30 hours and I still have no idea what I'm doing! These guides have been uber helpful!

Wait, are we not going to talk about how his wife got pregnant while he was off fighting a battle?

thanks so much man. this is my first crusader kings and you're really helping me enjoy the game. thanks for all the guides :p

Ÿour videos should be included in the game as official tutorials. They have helped me a lot. Thanks bunches!

Would love a guide on how to properly raise and educate offspring. I'm particularly confused about the ward/guardian system and how that match affects the base stat growth of the child.

This is my first CK game, and your guides have been fantastic. I really appreciate all the work you’re putting into these tutorials!

Thought I would pitch in here, on a rather significant note regarding claims, as it were: As you may or may not know, there is a "decision" in the decision-menu-thingy, where you can "invite claimants", costing you prestige and putting the "decision" on a 10 year cooldown. This will cause random claimants of neighboring realms to arrive at your court. What you might not have realized, is that you can do something very similar, without having to deal with any prestige cost, randomness, or cooldown. You can in fact, manually, invite a claimant of your choice: When selecting a ruler, from the screen on the left where you can see their "avatar" (character thingy, as well as their spouse, education focus, traits, domain limit, and so on... ) you can select the flag/emblem for the ruler's primary title. From there, press "claimants" and you get a list of everyone who has a pressed, or unpressed claim. Armed with this information, you can now invite someone with the desired claim to your court, upon which point you will be able to press their claim in a war. In other words: If you want to take possession of the kingdom of Aquitaine, simply check out the list of claimants for said kingdom, and invite any one of them to your court. You may find that you have to convince a claimant in some cases to join your court. You can sway them, send a gift, increase court grandeur/amenities, or even kidnap them and forcibly recruit them, to name a few ways to get them to join your court. Once the claimant has joined your court, *it is important to note* that pressing their claim will, after enforcing demands, vassalize that claimant and make them the new holder of the title in question... along with all THEIR vassals... so our claimant will become the king or queen of Aquitaine, and your vassal, *should your title be of a higher tier than theirs* . So you would have to be an emperor in order to vassalize the kingdom of Aquitaine and keep it under your rule, in this example. If your highest held title is of equal or lower "tier" compared to the claimed title, enforcing demands will make them independent. However, they will, of course, get an opinion bonus of you from having you press their claim, so make of that what you will. You could, for instance, invite a claimant to your court, arrange a marriage between them and a house member of yours, in such a way where their children will be of your house/dynasty, granting you a long-term ally that can be called to any war, be it inside or outside your realm, as they are, in fact, independent.

The best way I recommend to just understand everything is play the game a few hours (after doing the tutorial) and figuring it out yourself, set everything on easy it’s just to find out, then whatever you don’t understand just find a guide and cuz you already have experience with the game it won’t go in one ear and out the other

Loved it!

I absolutely needed this combat guide so badly. Pretty much every other strategy game has taught me that bigger numbers = win. I'm a touch intimidated by how deep the combat systems go but knowing how it works is going to make warfare much easier for my heir

Great videos, thanks for sharing this! Quick nitpick from a former (and reformed) Latinist: "de jure" is Latin, meaning roughly "by law" and is pronounced roughly "day you-ray".

Thank you so much for this in-depth explanation of combat and claims in CK3 - this actually helped me to understand the systems much better and also use things like forests and mountains to my advantage!

Excellent video only been playing for about 10 hours and have been waiting for a video like this to show all the ins and outs of the combat screens really helpful mate cheers.

Woud be so cool to have all this diplomacy combined with some decent combat like in the first total war games.

Thank you so much I have around 25 hours and still couldnt understand everything about claims. You really explained them super clearly good job !

That has been an amazingly helpful demonstration of just how detailed the war aspects are - I had not realised at all how rich this was.

Your guide certainly helped me get around better in this game! Thank you very much, you got yourself a new subscriber :)

Again, love your videos. Well structured, well detailed, well spoken, couldn't ask for more. Thank you

Thank you for these tutorials I love grand strategy games but this one by far has the biggest learning curve.

Thanks for the guide and great video, greetings from Malta.

MVP of the year, I needed this video. Thank you so much!

Game just keeps getting better thanks to these kinds of great videos!!!

Great stuff in all your videos. Watched a bunch bcs I just started the game. Great content and well explained. You seem passionate by the period. Keep up the work!

Man the details in this game are mindblowing. Thanks for the guide!

Thanks for the video, very informative! Could you do a video on how to put together an effective military? Which men at arms regiments are the best? Do you want more regiments or bigger regiments? Are mercenaries worth it? What's the best way to get high quality knights? So and so forth.

Man, I just want to thank you so much for these videos. Especially going over the minutiae in the menus. It does help my deeper understanding of the game loads. I'd love maybe a wee tutorial on factions and how to deal (disband) them effeciently. They are defintley not working the same as CK2 and i'm finding I'm constantly putting out fires with regard to these instead of actively pursing goals. Its getting me frustrated. lol

Brilliant video and guide. Look forward to more.

I dig your channel and enjoying learning the new game. One suggestion - the battle breakdown is nice but I would also cover the after battle report. Its the green or red notification (depending on whether you won or lost) at the top of the screen. It can give you a more detailed breakdown on the results which can be helpful in figuring out better compositions, ie more light cavalry in the pursuit phase.

Thanks so much on the vid! As a newcomer watching your videos, it helped me tremendously and I'm now a fan! One specific problem I keep running into is having my heir succeed me but having all my vassals having a low opinion of him, leading to factions and etc when i just want to expand my kingdom. Were you going to ever make any vids including an explanation on how to avoid this? Thanks again for your hard work.

Great video with a lot of great information, thank you!

So helpful to a newer player, thanks so much!!

You are a godsent 😭 extremely helpful!

New Sub! Very informative and thought out content. Thank you for all the guides!

After 50 hours or so on the game I just watched the warfare part. And had a couple eye openers. I can retreat in an orderly fashion from an unfavorable battle? I can assault a breach to make sieges go faster? I can check which prisoners I can safely sell off? Dayyuummm!! Thanks man, that helped a lot!

Ngl you helped a lot and brought up some stuff I didn’t even pay attention to like that thx man

Another very helpful video, thank you for making these!! I just have a couple things to add/clarify that were different in my games (maybe it's a settings thing, I'm not really sure at this point). I noticed that marrying relatives off can be super dangerous because of their claims. It's a bit of a catch-22 because you want to get our dynasty on foreign thrones but at the same time, they will use their power or their new liege's power against you to press their claims. For example, I married a daughter into the family of the English ruling dynasty (de Normandie) in my first Ireland play-through. Then, a couple generations down the line, my ruler has a relative as a vassal to England who has claims on ALL of my titles and England was MUCH more powerful than me and they stomped me into oblivion. So the next time around I enacted male only succession as soon as I could (which sucked because I'm a woman so I like to play as women) so that daughters can't inherit claims, but that doesn't seem to be working correctly. They can't inherit titles but they are still inheriting claims. However, the realm I marry them into won't be able to press those claims on my male-only titles unless somehow a woman gets them, which theoretically shouldn't be possible because not only can they not inherit but also I can't grant titles to women now. But the game says that women can't inherit claims under male-only and they still do. They just can't be pressed... but if they can pass those claims to a son I could be still screwed... It's all a bit confusing for me because so much has changed from ck2, which I have hundreds of hours in. I can't imagine how confusing it is to completely new players. The other thing that is different in my games is that characters lose their unpressed claims if they lose the war. They only get the pressed claims if the war ends in white peace.

You do an amazing job explaining. Ty

Thanks bro, great videos!

thanks for this . . . . a great vid and explanation of combat. Very helpful Cheers!

🎉 awesome, thanks!

Never Back Down IS a great movie!

Dude, you're very good at this.

Another helpful video from Sir Sparty

Fantastic video! You, sir, have gained a subscribe :))

Great videos man! You go over everything with amazing detail and it helps as a new player of the franchise to know whats what and how to make sense of it all. I was wondering if you had the time and could make a video on what does your courts purpose serve, and marrying them with others to expand your claims/land if thats a thing? Also i was having issues managing domains and granting titles to my heirs especially when i died i didn't understand that one of my sons was no longer my vassel and was his own thing that i no longer controlled even though he was my brother. Essentially the line of succession and how to grant titles to people in order to expand your empire and stay within domain limits. If that makes sense lol. Keep up the good work dude!

Man, I'm loving your videos. I really appreciate the work that goes into it. Just so you know, the "traditional" western way of pronouncing casus belli is 'case us bell eye'. That's probably pretty far off from the original Latin, at least as far as the vowels go, but there's not much debate about the consonants. There wouldn't be a 'sh' sound unless there was a c, cs, or j in there, so you can be pretty confident about using regular old S sounds in casus. Don't quit making these videos! You're the best on KZfaq for CK3! Love it!

i tried this game yesterday and i mad emy own character and started as a chief in a province in Norway bcs i really wanted to try that. i dint go through the tutorial either since best way to learn is to simply play it. i conquered a bunch but i never managed to create the Kingdom of Norway. but i figured out how faith and money works and how to sorta increase it. and such. thanks for helping others enjoy crusader kings 3. I'm pretty sure many people are new to crusader kings right now bcs of the third game.

The opening scene of Kenneth Branagh's version of Shakespeare's "Henry V" is a great visual example of the "fabricate claim" action. It's also a great movie, especially if you are English ;)

great guide, that's what i call an useful video, thx

Bro the combat phase breakdown you did here is fantastic. I have played HOI4 (300 hrs), EU4 (700 hrs), Imperator: Rome (50 hrs), and Stellaris (40 hours), and I still learn new stuff about combat from Paradox games. The pursuit portion is something I had NO clue about and wondered why my armies, despite being "elite" and way outnumbering the enemy, were not actually killing more of the enemy soldiers. It was like playing ping pong where I would slap them and they would just shatter and come back with basically the same size. Turns out I didn't have good pursuit (basically just using skirmishers and levies). Thanks for this, great work!

I'm new to the CK series and this channel has the best tutorial videos for noobs thx bro helped me a lot with succession and shit

I learned how to play stellaris and by god I’ll finally learn this

I tried hoi4 but failed misserably to understand it. Gave paradox another chance through ck3 coz i believe once a get it iz gonna be amazing and fun. And your guides are helping me so much. If this mechanics if brought over to total war (where i am a real veteran), it’s gonna be the ultimate strategy game of all time.

Youre the best man!

This really helped. Hopefully I will be a little more successful in my kingdom hence forth!

I’m really new to this game and I’m finding it very complicated as the game mechanics aren’t super intuitive but your explanations are brilliant

So if I understand this correctly when you order lasagna à la carte with amuse-bouche followed by soup du jour before the fin de siècle your je ne sais quoi nullifies all your legions joie de vivre thereby preventing a hostile ménage à trois from the nouveau riche. Any raison d'être therefore becomes fait accompli and your enemies suffer déjà vu.

i love your channel i‘m a new ck player and i‘m so glad there are channels like yours. I have a question though: after the tutorial with the murchad guy i had an unpressed claim on the kingdom of ireland BUT the kingdom of ireland is not yet created. how would you go about if you wanted to actually become king of ireland? or is it just an impossible hope?

Perfect guided and why i subbed

These videos are great! What's annoying me with the UI with respect to War is that it shows your army power vs someone you might Declare on based on your army and all allies. So I've had a few times where I didn't fully look at each of our individual army sizes without allies as the main screen showed my enemy was "vastly inferior" but then once I declared war, 1 ally wouldn't come, 1 would but couldn't because he was a vassal of my enemy (but still showed his army size in the UI contributing to "vastly inferior". And then the last cost so much Prestige (750) that I didn't want to do it. By that point instead of it being like my 4000 with 3 allies vs his 900, it was my 800 vs his 900. The UI definitely needs a tickbox for "include Allies" because this isn't Civ, Allies don't just auto-join every war. Also, just like Civ, if I don't bring my army to help in my allies war, I get in trouble but I can't yell at my allies if they don't come help me out? Come onnn lol

Hey Sparty, these videos have been incredibly helpful to me as someone brand new to the series, and now I'm having more fun with a game than I honestly have in years. I have a question though-would you ever consider doing a video on expansion methods beyond just war? I've been marrying into claims, fabricating them, and using other kinds of claimants to expand my kingdom, but I always end up actually grabbing the territory just by invading and sieging. I'm in my third generation starting from Dublin on tutorial island, and I've "united" Ireland and am now invading Wales, but I feel like this ultra-aggressive method is maybe the least interesting way to play this game, even if it still is really fun. Any tips for diplomatic strategies or intrigue strategies to expand?

Regarding claims, I found I could also use this to my advantage against targets. I had a subterfuge heavy count in Portugal where I had no option but to murder my way through the succession line to inherit some more land, not entirely successfully as I only gained 1 county (I suspect because I was discovered in at least one plot and disinherited along the way). But turning my attention to the south, murdering the lead sultan splintered his kingdom to more manageable chunks I could take on with my fledging army (although this took years in game time sitting on one county ownership).

You might be tempted to go after castles for loot and hostages. Ransoms go for 10 and can go as high as 500 a pop. Enforce demands happen basically immediately and the AIs might take a couple days before it reaches out to surrender.

The best way to understand De Jure claims is to think of it like a pyramid: County

I'm unable to currently play on account of my laptop unable to run it efficiently, but this gives me a look on how the game works once my new laptop arrives

@ItalianSpartacus I would love to see a guide on vassal management. As you expand from county to dutchy -> kingdom->empire what are the various strategies on managing your vassals and titles so that vassals stay happy and do not become too powerful to oppose you. Once i hit kingdom level i seem to hit a brick wall and find it difficult to expand further.

Jesus Christ. I was just fae rolling combat and couldn't understand why with a huge ass army, the opposing army was allowed to walk away with only like 100 soldiers lost. Never figured that the combat bar would also have Blue Help Text. Game changing.

I would love to see a guide on how to manage marriages. I’m especially bad at using matralenial marriages successfully or getting my dynasty to have lands outside of my empire.

Honestly I'd recommend starting off as Asatru or changing your faith to include either the Warmonger or Pursuit of Power tenets

Amazing tutorial! Subscribed! Could you please do a tutorial on gold and levies? I am having a hard time understand gaining levies and increasing army quality.

I need to learn more about troops and how they work.

Thanks for this.:) Man is that combat system convoluted though.

I was hoping you would go into detail on the land limit and if/how your able to raise it and what's the penalties for going over?

I haven't bought the game yet, but stumbled upon these awesome videos while doin a little research and....well I want ck3 even more now. Can't wait to unite Africa or begin Portugal. Yeah amazing videos

This helped me alot. In my tutorial campaign, my heir suddenly lost a ton of income and levies because my second son suddenly held a metric shit-ton of titles. It almost halfed my armies in one succession, which made me unable to heplpout the hebrides against the danish 5K armies. I went from almost 4K to 1800 levies in one stupid event, that the tutorial did nothing to point out.

what happens once you do take that dutchy/county at the end? Do you leave the ruler as your vassal or do you strip title for yourself? I took over half of Ireland from tutorial but only had 1/7 holdings

Some info about using another character's claim would be appreciated I dont have a specific question but when I played a few days ago there was a claimant in my court but couldnt use him. Was I supposed to invite him to my court and then try to press that claim? Also there were a few moments where I could hit the declare war button and use another character's casus belli but the confirm button was greyed out. I know I'm not super clear. I'll play again and if I run into it i'll formulate my question more clearly

Was wondering why sometimes when I've sieged an area my troops end up saying standing still. There is no progression on the siege. I've tried to go and attack my enemies troops away from the siege and some of the time I do catch them and get the 100% but when I enforce the demand I don't get the county. Is that a bug or am I doing something wrong with my attacking. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Great video, cheers for the pointers. Quick question though, can you get claims for entire kingdoms and does that allow you to win the kingdom once you win the war? Or do you have to conquer one duchy at a time?

Sparty: Let's dive on into the game and have some fun with war, combat and claims in Crusader Kings 3. Also Sparty, 1 second later: So before we actually get into war and combat... Such a blue baller, shame on you! I chose to play as Tatomir, Count of Sandomierz in Poland and has been stuck with Sandomierz, Radom and Cieszyn whole game. First we got steamrolled by Hungary, and later Polish king forbid to wage war between his vassals (need a strong hook). Now I lost Radom to my brother after Tatomir died, and I am going to lose Cieszyn to another nephew when this character dies. I hope this video helps me out.

Thanks for the detailed terrain info, I didn't realise mountains, etc had as large an effect as they do. Does anyone know the benefit of high ruler prowess apart from random pop up events? I get that you want it for knights who actually fight, but I've not seen a situation where my ruler is actually fighting, only where he leads an army and martial is key.

Quick Question(literally near start of video) if you create claims on Duchys, are you able to have a greater claim upon the unclaimed duchys of the full kingdom?

after you have taken the county how do you make it part of your domain removing the ruler there. it seems that surrender white peace and force demands are the options but the guy I just defeated gets to bocome a vassal of mine when I want it to become under my direct control..thx

Nice vid! CDNThe3rd Team.

Quick question - In ck2 you were able to take "extra" land/counties that you occupied during the war. Are you not able to do this anymore? IE - I took land #1 (wargoal) but I also took land #2 and #3 because I seiged it and occupied it and secured it during the peace talks.... did I explain this right? Lol who knows.

Are my armies being reinforced all of the time? I notice I can raise a few troops back home but I only need them to go replenish the main army. If I had two armies how does the replenishment work there? Does it trickle in equally between all armies?

I've put in I don't know how many hours since release. Several campaign attempts, all the way up to forming an empire. And I had zero idea about any of this combat stuff. I've been looking at the numbers over the head of my army vs theirs. And if I'm bigger I attack. And I wondered why sometimes I got destroyed even though I had 4x as many levy. And now I know. This was incredibly helpful. I didn't even know you could retreat mid battle... I wish you would have went into attrition and supply more, maybe tips on how to manage it?

I have a question on how archbishops give you claims. I've used that function a lot in my Ireland run so far, but I've noticed sometimes I'm given the option to pay more in order to get a claim to a whole duchy (or petty kingdom in Irish terms). What causes that? Do you have to fabricate against the ducal capital, or is it random?

19:08, I have the high ground!

Hi. I am new to this game. I have a question. My neighbor in Alhlone has a unpressed claim heir to the Kingdom of Ireland. If I defeat him, do I can I demand that claim? And would I atomically get that claim upon defeating him for his county or would that be a separate demand? I have already got the cassa belli.

I do wish you could add a war target for allies sort of like total warhammer 2 has. I find the ally ai most of the time kind of helps but would like to be able to focus them a bit more

Can you give me advise on how to get casus beli if I’m a vassal? I can’t attack other fellow vassals so I tried the fabricate claim, but I still didn’t get any casus belli after getting a claim

The guide that Id really like is an idea of how to make money; I can't help but feel like Im missing something on how to do that efficiently.

As I can't a good guide on my own, I just want to say that I would love a guide on rally points, men at arms and reinforcements. Keep up the great work!

When combat width limits your armie's "frontline", how does the game decide which units are at the "frontline"? Levies/men-at-arms/knights?

How to know where to go with your army when you are trying to help a Ally I can't find them on the map.

First time playing CK. In my play through as William the Conquer, I had someone in my court with the claim to Scotland. I won the war but he got the kingdom. I now know that if the claim is the same as my rank, that person will not be my vassel. So how do I get the claim for the whole kingdom? Or do I have to do it by duchies?

u missed the far left of holding wargoal a slow tick like taking a duchu from empires. just sitting on it can tick u to win

Great video but How does one increase the strength of the army over time? The number of levies always seem to be dwindling!