CK3 Dev Diary #60 - The Cost of Warfare

[InsidiousMage]

If we want the AI to push for suicidal independence on the basis of stupidity, let it be controlled by the Imbecile, Stupid and Slow traits, not by Ambitious.

Sure, that can have an effect but they game has tons of traits and adding Ambitious with other traits like Arrogant should lead the AI to make less than optimal choices on occasion, like a count joining a large independence faction.

Sure but like Tiax said, ambition alone shouldn't cause hopeless rebellions. If it's combined with arrogant, stupid, vengeful or wrathful it might make more sense. If it was happening all the time though it would be stupid. Even rulers with all of those traits would be unlikely to fight a war they can't win.

Unless I've missed something, no one is saying a count with the Ambitious trait should automatically join independence factions, just that they should under certain circumstances, including having the right combination of traits. There should not be a base level of competence for all AI rulers because that's not realistic or even fun. There should be some AI rulers who are dumb or bad outside of having the negative congenital traits who do make bad decisions because that offers up variety and even opportunities that might not happen otherwise, like counts in large empires being able to take the territory of independent counts to increase their own strength and improve their position in their own realm.

 

[jmpnjkrbbt]

Sure, but the way the AI conducts war currently is that the two armies march past each other and race to siege down each others' capitals and see who gets lucky with captives. It's one thing to weaken to a large state with a prolonged, devastating war. It's another to just sail around to their capital, siege it down, and make them easy pickings for the vultures.

Countries should be weakened because their armies have been cut down, not because they can't re-garrison their capital.

I agree with you here and am not ashamed to admit blitzing the capital and hoping for captives has been my go to tactic more than once. The ease and benefit make it irresistible compared to a long drawn out war.

Maybe forts should also be made more meaningful. Like troops not being able to pass until they've been seiged down? It would make placement a more strategic decision and give an incentive to locate your capital somewhere strategically advantageous.

Not sure if that would even work with the rest of the mechanics (building types etc). But I definitely see you point and agree some kind of change will be needed.

 

[Cymsdale]

Like troops not being able to pass until they've been seiged down?

Gross. Hard no.

The game already chunks away troops by attrition if you do this, that's good enough.

 

[Nikolai II]

Also, why would the empires, having the influential and rich ruler, that mercs would want to get attention of, in prospects of gaining more fame and influence, and the ruler which would have more mercs flock to him (because his realm is big and because they KNOW they will get paid, he's "extremely rich" after all), have more troubles hiring mercs that some random one-province no-name? That makes no sense

More like "they know he's rich enough to screw them over any which way he wants, up to and including just letting another mercenary company kill them 'else neither of you will get paid'" - since there's nothing to say that rich kings have morals. At least the one-province local ruler can be coaxed into paying since your mercenary unit is bigger than his whole army. (Or you use the debt as a legit reason to just usurp him, if he's noname enough.)

 

[WJS]

Also, why would the empires, having the influential and rich ruler, that mercs would want to get attention of, in prospects of gaining more fame and influence, and the ruler which would have more mercs flock to him (because his realm is big and because they KNOW they will get paid, he's "extremely rich" after all), have more troubles hiring mercs that some random one-province no-name? That makes no sense

For the same reason student discounts or traveler upselling is a thing.

You offer your product at price points that your consumers can pay, even if they come from different classes. So you charge the student $20 and the professional $100. The student will never buy your product if you ask for $100 all the time, and if you charge both the student and the professional $20 you're just leaving money on the table.

So, you ask for more from the emperor because you know the emperor can pay it. Sure, maybe you always hope to have an emperor's contract, but a realist knows that's not always the case and you should take what you can get.

 

[Secret Master]

It should create more challenging situations, and you might want to concede to some factions to avoid struggling with too many opponents.

Interesting.

Is there any plan to change or nerf execution dread as well? I know it was already kind of nerfed once, but I'm still able to execute a bunch of foreign magnates to generate 100 dread and cow the vast majority of vassals into submission without using hooks, blackmail, abduction, murder, alliances, friendships, or small pox riddled corpses launched via catapult at my rivals territory.

 

[Tiax]

I know I've posted a lot of concerns already, but I have one more:

One of the most frustrating mechanics is that, when you are playing as a vassal, your liege can concede to the demands of a populist faction and give away some or all of your land without giving you the opportunity to fight it. Because the liege never goes to war, you can't help defend your territory, and potentially face an immediate game over, or at least the loss of a large part of your lands. Will this new way of calculating faction strength lead to an increase of the frequency of this? Is this mechanic something Paradox has on their radar as needing a second look?

I understand there should be a danger of having angry peasants sweep away your land, but the experience of just having your territory suddenly disappear with no opportunity to fight it is not a fun one (or realistic).

In general, the faction system has a lot of problems beyond how easy or hard it is for them to form. While I totally agree that factions should be more of a threat than they are, changing the frequency with which they fire without fixing their other underlying problems risks increasing the frequency of bad gameplay experiences.

On the subject of independence factions, compare the real world outcome of the collapse of the Seljuk empire with the outcome in game (see attached screenshots). In real life, the result of the collapse is a set of coherent realms. There are big ones and small ones, but each is its own clear state. The result in game is a mess - the Seljuq realm is left with over a dozen disconnected islands, and the independent realms are often a disconnected mess as well. This means that the AI will spend decades or centuries fiddling about trying to unify these realms - and probably failing. There will never again be coherent nations in this region, and a player in, for example, Byzantium, will never have rivals.

The reason that the real world looks so different is that independence-minded rulers don't just take whatever piecemeal holdings they have and strike out on their own - they seize what they can. If you're the ruler of Khorasan in the Seljuq empire, and there's a random county or two within Khorasan that aren't on board with your independence plan, you wouldn't just leave them as Seljuq enclaves - you'd claim them as part of your war.

To say it another way, the biggest thing that factions need is a path to achieving sensible goals and good gameplay experiences, not merely an adjustment to their frequency or strength calculations. Taking a system that leads to frustrating, unrealistic outcomes and turning up the dial on it is a dangerous change. Having blobs collapse is important, but it's equally important that they collapse into something that player an engaging experience (and is realistic, as well).

I know this dev diary is only one part of the changes that are coming in the patch, but I hope we'll see improvements to how factions function in a future diary.

 

[lozikk]

If demand is low, one needs to lower their prices. Empires aren't always at war, but mercenaries do need to eat.

Diary:

• The primary title
• The size of the Realm
• The current Innovation Era

Where's the "demand" part here? Maybe there is a demand for that particular empire, who knows? The system won't check for demand though

More like "they know he's rich enough to screw them over any which way he wants, up to and including just letting another mercenary company kill them 'else neither of you will get paid'" - since there's nothing to say that rich kings have morals. At least the one-province local ruler can be coaxed into paying since your mercenary unit is bigger than his whole army. (Or you use the debt as a legit reason to just usurp him, if he's noname enough.)

And also they know they are rich enough to just pay and have less reasons to screw them up. If the emperor is going to screw them up and kill them, then what's the point of asking for more money if they expect to be screwd up over any amount?

For the same reason student discounts or traveler upselling is a thing.

You offer your product at price points that your consumers can pay, even if they come from different classes. So you charge the student $20 and the professional $100. The student will never buy your product if you ask for $100 all the time, and if you charge both the student and the professional $20 you're just leaving money on the table.

So, you ask for more from the emperor because you know the emperor can pay it. Sure, maybe you always hope to have an emperor's contract, but a realist knows that's not always the case and you should take what you can get.

Then it's the small counts who should get a discount, not other way around

 

[Nak'Arosh]

@Pdx_Meedoc

As you can see, the information has been restructured and it should be easier now to:

• Compare your strength with your target
• Estimate if your opponents will have the funds to hire mercenaries

To me this to options just make the game easy. I like the idea of fog of war, mislead tactics. I like the idea that 100% of reputation not means that they really like you or even that been in alliance they won't break it. This make the AI more real and bring depths to war and politician actions. This should be the task of spies and other diplomatic actions.

Please give us the options to disable this.

Edit: In correction about my response. Is gave us more depths on Spies. To work this out from them not automatically.

 

[ZlNT]

The dynamic price will make it easier for lower tier realms to rely on Mercenaries and fight back their bigger neighbours. And it will be harder for extremely rich emperors to deny access to mercenaries by hiring all of them for a small sum. After all, why would the Count of Ulster be expected to pay the same price as the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire - if you're a mercenary captain and you see that your client clearly is rich, you might just increase your prices...

The general idea is good, yet I am too scared to see how it is going to be implemented. I have CK2 flashbacks. Decision cost is tied to realm income and simple actions require ridiculous amounts of money. Hope this is not the case.

 

[lozikk]

From the CK3 Dev Diary I didn't like this :

It's not from the "Dev diary". Load up your game. Either CK2 or CK3. Click on any ruler. You can see their money, prestige, levies, vassal relationship. How does that become a problem just now?

 

[Nak'Arosh]

It's not from the "Dev diary". Load up your game. Either CK2 or CK3. Click on any ruler. You can see their money, prestige, levies, vassal relationship. How does that become a problem just now?

Thus should be have a option to disable this. I prefer play my game without know the enemy force and neither him about mine.

Don't know enemy force is basic for any strategic game. To know the enemy force you gonna work for it.

 

[pengoyo]

Looks great!

Glad to see there's more down sides to expanding into lower quality regions.

 

[luigi_L]

@Pdx_Meedoc







To me this to options just make the game easy. I like the idea of fog of war, mislead tactics. I like the idea that 100% of reputation not means that they really like you or even that been in alliance they won't break it. This make the AI more real and bring depths to war and politician actions. This should be the task of spies and other diplomatic actions.

Please give us the options to disable this.

The information has always been available, they only changed its accessibility, which is a good thing.

That said, I'd like the war window to show which allies are occupied in another war.

 

[lozikk]

Thus should be have a option to disable this. I prefer play my game without know the enemy force and neither him about mine.

Don't know enemy force is basic for any strategic game. To know the enemy force you gonna work for it.

Espionage dlc isn't going to happen soon and it's the last thing the game needs right now (until it catches up on CK2 content), and until then no one would work on disabling this because that's the only way to get any information about other realms
Try mods

 

[lozikk]

The information has always been available, they only changed its accessibility, which is a good thing.

It didn't even change much... Just moved from the bottom of the war declaration window to the top. Turned out too many people didn't even look around...

 

[WJS]

Then it's the small counts who should get a discount, not other way around

...That's precisely the way the Dev Diary reads. Small counts pay less.

 

[Scanz]

please add controls for AI ally like in EU4 (stack, siege, attack etc.)
crusade rework
nerf green tree
and I don't understand why there are no tributaries in the game

 

[Cymsdale]

please add controls for AI ally like in EU4 (stack, siege, attack etc.)
crusade rework
nerf green tree
and I don't understand why there are no tributaries in the game

Tributaries are basically a different kind of vassal contract. If they do add them, it should work within that system.
They were essentially a pay to win feature of ck2 DLC though, should be better thought out.

 

[luigi_L]

It didn't even change much... Just moved from the bottom of the war declaration window to the top. Turned out too many people didn't even look around...

The treasuries weren't shown before.