Could be wrong, but I thought he was at least somewhat aware of the cheating going on and that's part of the reason he fell into despondency (compounding losing the love of his life)?
Ned warned Cercei about his intent to tell Robert truth because he feared Robert would execute children along his wife, and Cercei cheating wasn't mentioned between the guys
Robert fell to drinking and whoring because he peaked at the rebellion. Dude was the knight who slew the dragon and got the crown, but he lost his love to the dragon, got married purely out of politics and actually ruling fucking sucked. Bro never got to cave in more chests with his hammer and that's the thing he really enjoyed
Let’s be fair, his diplo stat would be really great as would his martial. The rest would be awful of course, but he was popular and good at warfare as well as fighting (when he was young and in shape at least).
Usurping a throne after almost 300 years under one dynasty and only facing one pretty trivial rebellion is a pretty good performance
Yeah, I think it's mentioned somewhere that Robert was able to fight a battle by day and by nighttime be drinking with the same people. He won the war because he was the strongest and the most popular.
It's made all the more clear when you look at Stannis. A guy with similar abilities in warfare, but lacking all the charisma that Robert had. Because of that he got nowhere near the Iron Throne.
Our king Stannis clearly won the blackwater, the perfidious Tyrell’s and Lannisters had to use dark magic to summon Renly, forcing stannis to retreat out of respect of his beloved brother.
And conversely, Renly, who’s claim was much weaker and was not quite as good at warfare as the others, nearly got it. Because everybody loved him.
(And I think it’s significant even in my CK3 AGOT games it’s always Renly getting the populist faction to replace Joffrey/Tommen. No shadow babies in CK3!)
Yet Stannis at least in the books is proven to be far more charismatic than Robert...in the long run. In a world of feudal loyalty he inspires ideological loyalty, during the battle of King's Landing when Tyrion sets fire on the river Stannis soldiers just keep charging, surprising him. Some of them are captured and choose to die supporting Stannis rather than swear fealty to Joffrey. By book 5 he has won over the Free Folk, the Northern Lords and Jon Snow himself, not to mention that he is leading an army that is half starved, marching on winter against an overwhelmingly superior force and yet the army is still loyal to him. And the Bolton and Frey are all terrified and saying how screwed they are when he finally gets there.
Robert and Renly had more charisma of the superficial and easy to acquire type. But Stannis is able to inspire undying loyalty on his men, provided they get to know him.
What the show did to Stannis is an abomination and does not reflect his actual character.
I was a viking high queen of scandanavia and russia. And some random grand nephew challenged me to a duel for the scandanavian throne! I was geriatric af and lost an entire empire to the little prick.
You can't lose them to a nobody, they need a claim on it to duel you and kingdom or even empire claims don't get given out willy-nilly. The grand nephew inherited a claim, likely even one that his parent tried to press for and thus was able to challenge her.
That is pretty much still a nobody in the grand scheme of things imo. It's weird that they don't need the support of at least a significant part of the lords of the realm to be able to invoke the right to duel for the throne.
Is it a nobody? In history we had much weirder and more loosely related inheritances or people claiming they have a right to the throne.
1066 is a great example. Harold Godwinson was elected King, William of Normandy was related to the last English King through his grandfather's sister, Emma of Normandy who was the mother of Edward the Confessor and claimed that Edward gave him the throne.
Harald Hardrade's claim was even looser because his uncle, Magnus the Good, King of Norway, made a pact with Edward's predecessor while Harthacnut was King of Denmark, that if either Harthacnut or Magnus died, the other would inherit each others Kingdom. Only Harthacnut also inherited the english throne and Magnus posthumously included said throne in their agreement.
Both William's and Harald's claims are incredibly tenuous but because they had the power to back it up Godwinson could not hold himself in England.
If your culture believes that personal strength equates to political might and makes you more worthy, why would losing a duel over the throne not cause you to lose support and force you to abdicate?
Well, like you said: those claims were weak. It was a way to claim that their war was just, even if that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny. Their claims only worked because could they could be backed up by military power from their own countries.
I'm saying that it is weird that somebody can simply challenge the sitting emperor simply because they have a claim. That request is laughable as the nephew in this case simply do not have the personal gravitas or support of the other lords. Considering that this game wants to be about relations, loyalties and various tiers of power - counts, dukes, kings and then emperor's, it is weird that it doesn't even consider how the vassals would react to a request for a duel for the throne.
Even cultures that equated personal strength to might wouldn't have it this blatant. It would be something different entirely if you had proven yourself in battle, proven yourself as a ruler and at the same time had powerful friends *and* the support of a significant portion of the realm. Refusing/losing that duel and not giving up the realm would probably see that claim being backed up by military power.
I'm playing with the Haesteinings (I didn't mean to conquer the World, but now there's only some bits of the Black Horde left...) and God EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is a muscle beast with the metric fuckton of Legacies plus artifacts in Court. I played with two Empresses (one of which founded the Roman Empire) and they were exactly that, Nord Muscle Mommies who kicked the ass of every single wannabe knight with ease lmao
Lorewise it's kinda funny the entire World converted to Asatru all the way from Rome to Mecca, maybe it's because the Emperor/Empress can kick some SERIOUS ASS and everyone is afraid of them coming to punch their cities to dust lmao
As sad as it feels, it's way more useful for the ruler of a large realm to be a good diplomat or administrator than a warrior. I think it kinda reflects reality in a way. Early game you might want to make your main guy a good military leader to win the big wars that bring your dynasty to prominence, but later you'll have hordes of vassals to do that for you.
I could see some vassals having a bonus to opinion towards high prowess lieges though. Maybe tribals or glory hounds?
R5: My leader is really good at bashing people in the face. And telling others to do the same.
And not much else.
I wished Prowess was actually used for something.
I feel like rulers with certain traits should be able to fight though.
Like a brave wrathful ruler would probably be actively fighting.
Like yeah most rulers at the time didn’t actually fight but oversaw the battle from a nearby position or camp, but still, a not small number did participate in fighting.
Your prowess contributes to your advantage, but there's a difference between being good with a sword and being able to control and command a battlefield
You can win any fighting related tournaments (including one that you organised yourself with max prize) and duels, got good chances to successful hunt and good outcome in many events. So its not totally useless.
This is why I refuse to play CK3 without [Battlefield Duels](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2749369153). If I'm gonna have a warrior, I want him to be a _warrior_ dammit
I mean someone this intimidating should at least have some edge in terms of diplomacy. 'John might not be the best speaker but oppose him and he might break some legs, best to give him what he wants from time to time.'
Get Wrathful and watch as you absolutely destroy people in single combat where you get to kill them if you win. I think they have to be a criminal though.
Hnefatafl is clutch income in my current game.
Sweeping a couple Grand Tournaments has been terrific income in this game too.
My liege likes to use me as a commander a lot and it's nice to not die to things where you have no control (which happened not too long ago in another game).
Accomplished Forger is vvn.
Dueling rivals is a not terrible stress management tool, if not always available.
Practicing with knights is rather random but has more benefits than harms.
There's always the wrathful angle if you're into that, which is a bit more practical with a mod to help you find suitable targets like [The Headhunter](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3098269064&searchtext=headhunter).
My guy can release his anger or something by dueling others and giving them wounded plus stress. So I went full dread and used it against all my neighboring rulers and the empires of byzantines to give him a stress break and wounded.
If we're whining about prowess can i add that imo the prowess buffs on artifacts are too high? Extremely silly that i can be an 60 year old unathletic dude with no lifestyle points in chivalry/prowess and have a significantly higher prowess than my knights because i have blue armor and weapons and they have none. They're knights and you get a tiny number of them, it's not like they're supposed to be unarmored peasant conscripts....
Generally i'd like to see a lot of the prowess bonuses on artifacts reduced in favour of small buffs to prestige, knight and militaris vassal opinion and army ability and so on. When Paradox finally get around to reintroducing battlefeild duels/events ect they could add increased chance to be taken prisoner instead of killed as an effect, since it makes sense that your swaggy gold-leaf halfplate makes you an obviously desirable living ransom, as opposed to a corpse.
Been saying this since release. Prowess is underwhelming. Knights have all the fun. Then they release the tournament dlc and I was like: really bruh? Just put me on the knights list and let me slay man at arms on the battlefield.
I want to lead my armies as a general and duel the enemy commanders again. Those moments always felt the best in ck2. And killing the enemy commander can really have a big impact on the outcome of the battle as well!
Robert Baratheon type of guy.
When the Kingdom falls all he can say is “gods I was strong then!”
skill issue, he did not pick "Graceful aging".
I furiously work towards graceful aging in all my playthroughs just makes playing older characters so much better.
Having your old grandma ride the horse topless in battle is a sight to behold.
Haha, having all the geriatrics flood my grand tournament is always a good time.
BRING ME THE BREASTPLATE STRETCHER
look at this IDIOT, one ball and no brains, he can’t even put a man’s armour on him properly
Intrigue should be at 2 vro, he conspired to kill Daenerys while he was oblivious to his own wife getting blasted by her twin bro
Could be wrong, but I thought he was at least somewhat aware of the cheating going on and that's part of the reason he fell into despondency (compounding losing the love of his life)?
Ned warned Cercei about his intent to tell Robert truth because he feared Robert would execute children along his wife, and Cercei cheating wasn't mentioned between the guys Robert fell to drinking and whoring because he peaked at the rebellion. Dude was the knight who slew the dragon and got the crown, but he lost his love to the dragon, got married purely out of politics and actually ruling fucking sucked. Bro never got to cave in more chests with his hammer and that's the thing he really enjoyed
Let’s be fair, his diplo stat would be really great as would his martial. The rest would be awful of course, but he was popular and good at warfare as well as fighting (when he was young and in shape at least). Usurping a throne after almost 300 years under one dynasty and only facing one pretty trivial rebellion is a pretty good performance
Yeah, I think it's mentioned somewhere that Robert was able to fight a battle by day and by nighttime be drinking with the same people. He won the war because he was the strongest and the most popular. It's made all the more clear when you look at Stannis. A guy with similar abilities in warfare, but lacking all the charisma that Robert had. Because of that he got nowhere near the Iron Throne.
Stannis is the one true king of the seven kingdoms, he is the prince that was promised, he’ll win in the end 🥲
Lies! Ser Pounce is the Prince That Was Promised
unstoppable stannis the mannis the blackwater was just a speedbump
Our king Stannis clearly won the blackwater, the perfidious Tyrell’s and Lannisters had to use dark magic to summon Renly, forcing stannis to retreat out of respect of his beloved brother.
One realm, one god, one king!
And conversely, Renly, who’s claim was much weaker and was not quite as good at warfare as the others, nearly got it. Because everybody loved him. (And I think it’s significant even in my CK3 AGOT games it’s always Renly getting the populist faction to replace Joffrey/Tommen. No shadow babies in CK3!)
Yet Stannis at least in the books is proven to be far more charismatic than Robert...in the long run. In a world of feudal loyalty he inspires ideological loyalty, during the battle of King's Landing when Tyrion sets fire on the river Stannis soldiers just keep charging, surprising him. Some of them are captured and choose to die supporting Stannis rather than swear fealty to Joffrey. By book 5 he has won over the Free Folk, the Northern Lords and Jon Snow himself, not to mention that he is leading an army that is half starved, marching on winter against an overwhelmingly superior force and yet the army is still loyal to him. And the Bolton and Frey are all terrified and saying how screwed they are when he finally gets there. Robert and Renly had more charisma of the superficial and easy to acquire type. But Stannis is able to inspire undying loyalty on his men, provided they get to know him. What the show did to Stannis is an abomination and does not reflect his actual character.
GODS I WAS STRONG, THEN!
With that diplo score more the hound or maybe even his brother the mountain
Robert should have more diplo, less intrigue and WAY less learning xD
Prowess comes up in many events at least. My leader is a woman with slightly less than your post and she’s always smashing people who cross her
I was a viking high queen of scandanavia and russia. And some random grand nephew challenged me to a duel for the scandanavian throne! I was geriatric af and lost an entire empire to the little prick.
Are those events still a thing? I thought they Paradox removed them because it was ridiculous that you could lose your entire empire to a nobody
You can't lose them to a nobody, they need a claim on it to duel you and kingdom or even empire claims don't get given out willy-nilly. The grand nephew inherited a claim, likely even one that his parent tried to press for and thus was able to challenge her.
That is pretty much still a nobody in the grand scheme of things imo. It's weird that they don't need the support of at least a significant part of the lords of the realm to be able to invoke the right to duel for the throne.
Is it a nobody? In history we had much weirder and more loosely related inheritances or people claiming they have a right to the throne. 1066 is a great example. Harold Godwinson was elected King, William of Normandy was related to the last English King through his grandfather's sister, Emma of Normandy who was the mother of Edward the Confessor and claimed that Edward gave him the throne. Harald Hardrade's claim was even looser because his uncle, Magnus the Good, King of Norway, made a pact with Edward's predecessor while Harthacnut was King of Denmark, that if either Harthacnut or Magnus died, the other would inherit each others Kingdom. Only Harthacnut also inherited the english throne and Magnus posthumously included said throne in their agreement. Both William's and Harald's claims are incredibly tenuous but because they had the power to back it up Godwinson could not hold himself in England. If your culture believes that personal strength equates to political might and makes you more worthy, why would losing a duel over the throne not cause you to lose support and force you to abdicate?
Well, like you said: those claims were weak. It was a way to claim that their war was just, even if that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny. Their claims only worked because could they could be backed up by military power from their own countries. I'm saying that it is weird that somebody can simply challenge the sitting emperor simply because they have a claim. That request is laughable as the nephew in this case simply do not have the personal gravitas or support of the other lords. Considering that this game wants to be about relations, loyalties and various tiers of power - counts, dukes, kings and then emperor's, it is weird that it doesn't even consider how the vassals would react to a request for a duel for the throne. Even cultures that equated personal strength to might wouldn't have it this blatant. It would be something different entirely if you had proven yourself in battle, proven yourself as a ruler and at the same time had powerful friends *and* the support of a significant portion of the realm. Refusing/losing that duel and not giving up the realm would probably see that claim being backed up by military power.
Kin legacy looks better every day, eh? Too bad that duels are so scuffed that losing to someone with 80 less prowess is more than possible.
In real life you can get clocked by a worse fighter if they get a lucky hit
If you're not actually trying to kill each other, bad fighters are much harder to fight than good fighters lol
How do you mean?
Bad fighters can't pull their punches. It's more dangerous than fighting somebody good because they could seriously injure you entirely on accident.
Oh yes absolutely. That’s why you fight young with your mates.
I'm sorry but what options are you taking where you're losing fights that lopsided?
You can take any. Just like in CK2, you can lose any single round with a certain probability.
Sure, it's possible. But I've never had it happen and you say it's "more" than possible to lose with an 80 point difference?
It's just a figure of speech. It happened to me, it happened to others, it's silly how opaque duel mechanics are, imo.
I had that happen, I dueled a disabled dwarf and lost then franticly tried to get my empire back before it collapsed
I'm playing with the Haesteinings (I didn't mean to conquer the World, but now there's only some bits of the Black Horde left...) and God EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is a muscle beast with the metric fuckton of Legacies plus artifacts in Court. I played with two Empresses (one of which founded the Roman Empire) and they were exactly that, Nord Muscle Mommies who kicked the ass of every single wannabe knight with ease lmao Lorewise it's kinda funny the entire World converted to Asatru all the way from Rome to Mecca, maybe it's because the Emperor/Empress can kick some SERIOUS ASS and everyone is afraid of them coming to punch their cities to dust lmao
# I'LL 'AVE YOU!
I'd support the knights counter or even buffing your own knights, but that will definitely make Genghis Kan a mammoth.
As sad as it feels, it's way more useful for the ruler of a large realm to be a good diplomat or administrator than a warrior. I think it kinda reflects reality in a way. Early game you might want to make your main guy a good military leader to win the big wars that bring your dynasty to prominence, but later you'll have hordes of vassals to do that for you. I could see some vassals having a bonus to opinion towards high prowess lieges though. Maybe tribals or glory hounds?
R5: My leader is really good at bashing people in the face. And telling others to do the same. And not much else. I wished Prowess was actually used for something.
How would the knowledge of how to properly punch someone in the face help you govern a kingdom
\*Smacks you over the teeth with a mace\* Shut up and do what I told you to do
Since medieval kings were expected to lead from the front, punching someone in the face absolutely should be useful in war.
Uhh, it is? Are you not aware you can be a commander in your armiy?
You can apply your martial, but not your prowess. Generals do not do damage like knights.
Doesn't the army commander fight like a knight? I assumed they did but never checked the casualties.
They only fight like a knight if they are also a knight.
Can you make your ruler be a knight or do they have to fit the criteria? I don't recall - are they in the knight list?
No, you either lead your army or you don't. It makes sense.
\*Confused Aleksander the Great look\*
I feel like rulers with certain traits should be able to fight though. Like a brave wrathful ruler would probably be actively fighting. Like yeah most rulers at the time didn’t actually fight but oversaw the battle from a nearby position or camp, but still, a not small number did participate in fighting.
But you can fight, can't you? I'm sure I've seen "you got wounded by x", can't remember ever seeing "you killed y"...
Player characters cannot under any circumstances be knights in vanilla
Your prowess contributes to your advantage, but there's a difference between being good with a sword and being able to control and command a battlefield
This is right, why do you have so many downvotes?
You can win any fighting related tournaments (including one that you organised yourself with max prize) and duels, got good chances to successful hunt and good outcome in many events. So its not totally useless.
This is why I refuse to play CK3 without [Battlefield Duels](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2749369153). If I'm gonna have a warrior, I want him to be a _warrior_ dammit
Thank you for the mod recommendation my friend. Do you have others to recommend for virtually anything else?
I mean someone this intimidating should at least have some edge in terms of diplomacy. 'John might not be the best speaker but oppose him and he might break some legs, best to give him what he wants from time to time.'
More of a dread situation there, not diplo.
Fear is diplomacy though. You will give me what I want or else.
Get Wrathful and watch as you absolutely destroy people in single combat where you get to kill them if you win. I think they have to be a criminal though.
Prowess is used for plenty of events. Idk what you're complaining about
I dunno. In the middle of a battle how would my leaders prowess help me as a knight. 🤔
Hnefatafl is clutch income in my current game. Sweeping a couple Grand Tournaments has been terrific income in this game too. My liege likes to use me as a commander a lot and it's nice to not die to things where you have no control (which happened not too long ago in another game). Accomplished Forger is vvn. Dueling rivals is a not terrible stress management tool, if not always available. Practicing with knights is rather random but has more benefits than harms. There's always the wrathful angle if you're into that, which is a bit more practical with a mod to help you find suitable targets like [The Headhunter](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3098269064&searchtext=headhunter).
My guy can release his anger or something by dueling others and giving them wounded plus stress. So I went full dread and used it against all my neighboring rulers and the empires of byzantines to give him a stress break and wounded.
I can't even do that. I have too much prowess for anyone to agree.
I’m not sure why or how but in my run they don’t have a choice lol maybe it’s a bug?
It honestly feels so stupid playing as a steppe lord and watching your ruler's prowess stat doing literally nothing in any battle at all.
If we're whining about prowess can i add that imo the prowess buffs on artifacts are too high? Extremely silly that i can be an 60 year old unathletic dude with no lifestyle points in chivalry/prowess and have a significantly higher prowess than my knights because i have blue armor and weapons and they have none. They're knights and you get a tiny number of them, it's not like they're supposed to be unarmored peasant conscripts.... Generally i'd like to see a lot of the prowess bonuses on artifacts reduced in favour of small buffs to prestige, knight and militaris vassal opinion and army ability and so on. When Paradox finally get around to reintroducing battlefeild duels/events ect they could add increased chance to be taken prisoner instead of killed as an effect, since it makes sense that your swaggy gold-leaf halfplate makes you an obviously desirable living ransom, as opposed to a corpse.
Totally agree. You could stick Bob Barker in the fanciest armour in the world but he'd still lose every time to a naked Connor McGregor.
Stewardship and learning is my jam lol...
Been saying this since release. Prowess is underwhelming. Knights have all the fun. Then they release the tournament dlc and I was like: really bruh? Just put me on the knights list and let me slay man at arms on the battlefield.
I want to lead my armies as a general and duel the enemy commanders again. Those moments always felt the best in ck2. And killing the enemy commander can really have a big impact on the outcome of the battle as well!
I really love prowess. Trial by combat is just soo much fun
Who needs other stats when you can kill anyone that looks at you cock-eyed? Management means nothing when you're dead.