After Action Report #5

Just a little bit more history of house Silenieks... 

The first member was my first Duke Sceadwian I of Sleslvig, who married Ingegerd, a Norwegian noblewoman. This union produced a healthy 6 offsprings.

1. Amelia - 2 children, (Magnus, Gerhild), which are now in house Billung
2. Juri - He was supposed to be my first heir, the second generation of my dynasty. Unfortunately died misteriously at the age of 24, two children, including my current top guy, Sceadwian II.
3. Tea - Great pius daughter.
4. Ernst - Married Grethe Ragnarsdatter, died abrupty *wink* *wink* at the age of 18. Perhaps this was a mistake in hidsight.
5. Grethe - Married a duke and had 8 children.
6. Mira -  Married a count and had 6 children.

As mentioned, now I play Sceadwian II. Married to Adheleid who was older and died. Then married Princess Marghret of Scotland and so far I have 6 children, 4 girls and 2 boys in the middle. I was definitely worried after 2 children that I wouldn't have a boy, and I was getting older. Fortunately ...

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Since then, I had some great ideas. First, I decided it may be a good move to marry my 9 year old to King Jorgen I, who is 12 years of age. I figured, my next big move should be to take Denmark for myself. I feel that in my two generations, I managed a solid, conservative game. I got a good hang of the game, but now is time to get myself some land. I think the lowest large hanging fruit is my own kingdom of Denmark, which is now being led by a pre-teen. On top of this, I have sent my spy to his island conty, to see if he has any vulnerabilities. You know, for SCIENCE mostly.  I have recently been helping my other Danish friends, to a point I will be the next King if something was to happen to our glorious king. Oh, I also managed to collect another 7 other claims, mostly from picking up people to join my court. So due to this I actually did some reading into courts, and even had some folks on reddit help me understand the role of courts in CK2. Here are some of their posts:

[–]OseOseOse 11 points 1 day ago

You can marry any two of your courtiers to each other, matrilineally if you wish. So if you can get a person with a claim to join your court, you can marry him/her into your dynasty, then press his/her claim. Then the children of the couple will be of your dynasty and eventually inherit the title you pressed.
Alternately, you can invite a claimant to a title that is lower than yours, land him, then press his claim. Because he's landed, he's already your vassal, so if you win the claim war you he will get the lands and remain your vassal, so the lands become part of your realm.

[–]The_Grand_Duke_of_S 1 point 5 hours ago

Also bear in mind that the resulting vassal will be of the same type (noble, clergy, burgher) as his existing title. So if you press a claim for county on behalf of a mayor he will become a lord mayor. I'm not sure how this acts with republic formation as I've not done this on a duchy or higher since the Republic DLC was released.

[–]TheChoke 3 points 23 hours ago

The landed part is very important, being the absent minded person that I am I have often pressed a claim only to realize that I did not gain any ground..

[–]drew12 4 points 1 day ago

You can go to the intrigue tab and have the game randomly generate a noble, holy man, or debutante (woman) and place them in your court. You can also right click on your picture, then right click on the icon that pops up on the left, then click 'Go To Character Relations'. A window pops up that allows you to look through every character in the game and sort them in various ways.
I look for people for my council or people that have claims to nearby places that I want to conquer. I also occasionally look for people to educate my kids but only if they're the same religion and culture as me.
A good way to gain lots of land quickly is to find someone with a claim that can be inherited and invite them to your court, then have them marry in a way that has their children be of your dynasty. Then wait until the invited person dies (or kill them) which will cause their claim to be passed on to their successor, which will be someone from your dynasty. Then press that person's claim, which will result in them becoming your vassal as long as it's for a title lower than yours.
Or if you're the de jure liege of an area you can skip the middle steps and just invite someone with a claim to your court and then press it.
You can see who has claims on each title by clicking the title from someone's character screen (for example, the title holder) and then clicking 'Claimants'.
I realize that I went off on a tangent but you said that you just started playing recently so this is something you may not know.

[–]zoah1984[S] 3 points 1 day ago

no, this is great information, thank you. I'm just about to start trying to expand my domain and have been struggling to find ways...

[–]darkmuch 3 points 1 day ago

Point 2 I have been wondering about myself. Depending upon where you are in game, the size of your court holds varying worth. When your nation consists of just one court, yours, you need to have it as large as possible as I see no repercussions.
I was surprised when I created my first vassal and had almost a fourth of my court leave. Seeing this, I think there is no real repercussion to a large court, just the fact you will constantly lose members.
Though minor IMO, more people means more management. This is basically the only real 'negative' I know of regarding your own court. Unlanded courtiers have almost no power in the political/intrigue system, so the plot against me aspect doesn't seem to be a major issue. Maybe having more people in your court allows plots against you to get more plotters, but in my experience the spy master uncovers most plots.

[–]forgotmyusernamegrr 4 points 1 day ago

More courtiers means more people to plot against/with you. Meaning that if you are a tyrant try and prune down your court to only people that like you. If you are a saint and everybody loves you invite those claimants and breed them into your dynasty.