The reason is that a Catholic won’t much mind getting married to an Insular Christian, but would never marry someone who already has a wife. Set the character finder filter to Religion: Christianity for your first wife. I don’t think that your son can have multiple wives unless he becomes the player character. And make sure he’s marrying a Christian or else you’ll be in trouble. Fecund and Beautiful raise fertility and come with other good buffs, and Genius is obviously very nice. Find him a young wife (in the character finder) with Fecund, Beautiful, or some level of Genius. He takes priority over you since either he or your grandson will inherit the realm. You start out with an unmarried son, so find him a wife. Now we get to the marriage. A lot of marriage. This perk will give you an edge against similarly-sized armies, and it’s even near to the top. A single knight can be the equal of hundreds of levies, so nearly doubling their strength is totally insane. This perk makes your knights 75% more effective. After Bellum Justum, swing through the right side of the Gallant tree and make sure to get Chivalric Dominance. This will save you A LOT of prestige down the road, especially because we are going to be declaring A LOT of wars. Bellum Justum reduces the prestige/piety cost of declaring war by 50%. The reason we go Martial is so as to pick up Bellum Justum ASAP. For now, go with Martial – Chivalry. You have no vassals right now so the opinion boost is wasted, but the prowess and advantage boosts are really important since you’ll probably be commanding your armies personally for a while. This is a huge topic and one that I’ll dedicate a section to. You don’t have to worry about using your prestige to declare war right now, because declaring on your nearby neighbors will cost piety instead.
#Crusader kings 2 best duchies upgrade
Upgrade your Bowmen as much as possible, but make sure not to send yourself into negative prestige. To raise them without raising levies, just raise your troops and then click on the X button next to the estimate of how long it will take for the levies to gather. You can disband them on one end of the realm and then raise them up on the other.
![crusader kings 2 best duchies crusader kings 2 best duchies](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/crusaderkings-two/images/a/a4/K_england.png)
You can raise your MAAs anywhere, instantly. It’s actually very good to do so, because they only cost prestige maintenance for tribal rulers. At the start of the game they’ll basically be a supplement to your levies, but later on you’ll be able to wage wars entirely with them. MAAs will be the backbone of your military for (I think) the entire game. Bowmen are countered by cavalry, but cavalry is expensive and you can just build a Pikemen division later. Bowmen benefit from hills and forests, which Ireland has plenty of. Skirmishers are also countered by Bowmen, which only cost like 10 prestige more. They only counter Heavy Infantry, which is so expensive that nobody should have any. They’re the cheapest aside from Skirmishers, but Skirmishers are trash. Next get 3 Bowmen Man at Arms (MAA) divisions. Make sure to always be swaying, befriending, or romancing.
#Crusader kings 2 best duchies free
Swaying is basically a free (unless you’re Shy) way to gain opinion points. Start out by swaying your Archbishop. He won’t be endorsing you at the start, meaning that he won’t be giving you his gold and levies. There will also be a tl dr at the end of the main sections, so you don’t have to read this entire book of mine. My knowledge of this game is not perfect, so please suggest any improvements to my methods.
![crusader kings 2 best duchies crusader kings 2 best duchies](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/HZ54n3c5jrbbt9n6dQkPeP.jpg)
![crusader kings 2 best duchies crusader kings 2 best duchies](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TLuqA.jpg)
Set the year to 867 and put Ironman OOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!! We’ll start as the chief of Desmond, as a nod to my bro King Murchad of Mumu. I played this format a lot, reset a lot when I was dissatisfied, got one county away from Britannia, realized I wasn’t playing on Ironman, and then most recently formed Ireland on an Ironman run while being much stronger than anyone in the region. It’s mainly for people who understand the game’s mechanics but don’t really get what to aim for. This guide will walk you through conquering the British Isles as an Irish Chief.