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CK3 Dev Diary #74 - Please Kaiser, Can I Have Some More?

Greetings counts and dukes! Today we will be looking at The Royal Court from a different perspective: your perspective!

While being a queen or emperor is great and all, sometimes it can be a bit of a drag to manage all those vying subjects. Sometimes, you just want to rule a small corner of a mightier realm, and enjoy the benefits of the Emperor’s protection, and while a duchess doesn’t have their own Royal Court, they can interact with their Liege’s via two new decisions.

Petition Liege
Player vassals can approach their King-or-above ranked Liege with a Petition at any time through a new decision, providing they have enough Prestige, there is something they can ask for, and they haven’t done so in the last 5 years. Lieges will currently only interact with this content if they happen to have a player as their vassal and they make their own—no doubt outrageous—requests.

The possibilities include asking for a position on your Liege’s Council, asking for a Title you hold a claim on, or dismantling an unruly Faction in your own realm. There are currently 14 different options, each having some equivalent in the Hold Court events brought to Lieges by AI vassals, ranging from helping you convert your lands to paying off your debts.

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This will allow you to ask for things directly without resorting immediately to war, which can remain a last resort for when you need to topple that king whose tolerance of border-gore clearly proves their illegitimacy.

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It is up to the Liege whether to receive a Petitioner, though outright refusing will damage relations and be seen as slightly tyrannical. The request itself may also be rejected once heard, and the odds of acceptance by the AI will be tipped more in your favor if you make reasonable requests and maintain good relations; after all, your boss doesn’t want to be seen as unreasonable.

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If they are astute, your Liege may also ask for something in return for granting your Petition, such as a Favor Hook or a bit of Gold—a counter you can of course reject, leaving you both empty-handed.

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If a Liege is not being very forthcoming, you can also attempt to convince or outsmart a trusted advisor as a last resort, at the cost of some Prestige. You will need to pass a skill check in a relevant area, usually against one of your Liege’s councillors, or have an ally near to the throne—the King’s wife perhaps—whose assent will force your Liege’s hand.

Pay Homage
Homage represents the formal pledge of loyalty by a feudal lord to their Liege, and provides Opinion, Renown, and Prestige to both parties, providing the occasion goes smoothly. This decision is also available to AI as well as players.

homage.png


This decision costs some Prestige to initiate, is only available to Feudal and Clan vassals, and can only be undertaken once per Liege. If the ruler changes or dies, you can make a new pledge of allegiance to their replacement.

As with Petition Liege, this decision can be rejected outright, and is not totally without risk even if they let you through the door. There is a great deal of pressure for such an important event to go well, and not all lords and ladies are made for public speaking.

Things can go awry in a variety of ways, depending on the Petitioner’s skills and other factors: Have you put in the hours to learn Norman, or merely practised a few key lines the night before on the road to Windsor? Will your Shah empathise with your stammer, or imitate it in front of the entire Persian court? Will you forever more be called ‘the Clumsy’ by your vindictive Sultan, simply because you lost your balance once?

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If something does go wrong, it is up to the Liege to decide if they will let it go—giving your rival the opportunity to publicly mock your clumsiness might not be the best idea. If they do decide to embarrass you, you will lose some Prestige and Opinion with your Liege, instead of gaining them.

Regardless of the outcome, both your Dynasties will gain a small amount of Renown, and the rewards are increased by offering gifts in addition to your pledge, such as a Contract change in favor of your Liege.

That broadly covers these two new decisions, so I’ll leave it there for now!
 
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Someone will have to correct me, but I believe this was tried. Was incredibly spammy for larger realms.
Perhaps you could put a limit to the amount of AI that can do a request per year and have larger countdowns for them, so the others could do requests in the countdown years? Say 3 per year max. It would make peacetime more interesting! Could this be looked at?
 
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How will good interact with petitions?

Can they reduce the cooldown between petitions?

Can we "persuade" our liege to accept a meeting and/or to accept our request?

And is this a mechanic unlocked by royal court or included in 1.5 for all? (Not that I care, I have the pass myself, but...)
 
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Someone will have to correct me, but I believe this was tried. Was incredibly spammy for larger realms.
Restriciting it to direct vassals (and maybe increasing the cooldown) has been tried as well? Would have the side effect of encouraging players to consolidate their realm under fewer, more powerful vassals, and as a consequence it'd make keeping these powerful vassals happy more important (and make rebellions more dangerous).

I think vassals having some more agency on their own would bring even more life to the game.
 
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That's sort of what the hold court feature is though.
Yes this is why. Hold court is how your AI vassals petition you for things - petition liege exists so that a human can also petition their liege (who might be human or AI) about things. :)
 
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One suggestion for reducing the spammyness if the AI had access to these decisions would be that they don't fire immediately, but only when I as the player choose to hold court. Then I would get the 3 default events plus whatever petitions the AI vassals have for me. Or maybe sort the vassal petitions by importance and only fire the top X petitions?
 
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Greetings counts and dukes! Today we will be looking at The Royal Court from a different perspective: your perspective!

While being a queen or emperor is great and all, sometimes it can be a bit of a drag to manage all those vying subjects. Sometimes, you just want to rule a small corner of a mightier realm, and enjoy the benefits of the Emperor’s protection, and while a duchess doesn’t have their own Royal Court, they can interact with their Liege’s via two new decisions.

Petition Liege
Player vassals can approach their King-or-above ranked Liege with a Petition at any time through a new decision, providing they have enough Prestige, there is something they can ask for, and they haven’t done so in the last 5 years. Lieges will currently only interact with this content if they happen to have a player as their vassal and they make their own—no doubt outrageous—requests.

The possibilities include asking for a position on your Liege’s Council, asking for a Title you hold a claim on, or dismantling an unruly Faction in your own realm. There are currently 14 different options, each having some equivalent in the Hold Court events brought to Lieges by AI vassals, ranging from helping you convert your lands to paying off your debts.

View attachment 758394

This will allow you to ask for things directly without resorting immediately to war, which can remain a last resort for when you need to topple that king whose tolerance of border-gore clearly proves their illegitimacy.

View attachment 758395

It is up to the Liege whether to receive a Petitioner, though outright refusing will damage relations and be seen as slightly tyrannical. The request itself may also be rejected once heard, and the odds of acceptance by the AI will be tipped more in your favor if you make reasonable requests and maintain good relations; after all, your boss doesn’t want to be seen as unreasonable.

View attachment 758396

If they are astute, your Liege may also ask for something in return for granting your Petition, such as a Favor Hook or a bit of Gold—a counter you can of course reject, leaving you both empty-handed.

View attachment 758413

If a Liege is not being very forthcoming, you can also attempt to convince or outsmart a trusted advisor as a last resort, at the cost of some Prestige. You will need to pass a skill check in a relevant area, usually against one of your Liege’s councillors, or have an ally near to the throne—the King’s wife perhaps—whose assent will force your Liege’s hand.

Pay Homage
Homage represents the formal pledge of loyalty by a feudal lord to their Liege, and provides Opinion, Renown, and Prestige to both parties, providing the occasion goes smoothly. This decision is also available to AI as well as players.

View attachment 758400

This decision costs some Prestige to initiate, is only available to Feudal and Clan vassals, and can only be undertaken once per Liege. If the ruler changes or dies, you can make a new pledge of allegiance to their replacement.

As with Petition Liege, this decision can be rejected outright, and is not totally without risk even if they let you through the door. There is a great deal of pressure for such an important event to go well, and not all lords and ladies are made for public speaking.

Things can go awry in a variety of ways, depending on the Petitioner’s skills and other factors: Have you put in the hours to learn Norman, or merely practised a few key lines the night before on the road to Windsor? Will your Shah empathise with your stammer, or imitate it in front of the entire Persian court? Will you forever more be called ‘the Clumsy’ by your vindictive Sultan, simply because you lost your balance once?

View attachment 758401

If something does go wrong, it is up to the Liege to decide if they will let it go—giving your rival the opportunity to publicly mock your clumsiness might not be the best idea. If they do decide to embarrass you, you will lose some Prestige and Opinion with your Liege, instead of gaining them.

Regardless of the outcome, both your Dynasties will gain a small amount of Renown, and the rewards are increased by offering gifts in addition to your pledge, such as a Contract change in favor of your Liege.

That broadly covers these two new decisions, so I’ll leave it there for now!
Hey,I wonder,will there be more people in a court ? like more beutiful ladies and so to make the court feel livley and make it more realistic,this would allow for more affairs or such and allow for an ovearll experiance that there are actual people in the court and not 10 people dispersed to each corner
 
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One suggestion for reducing the spammyness if the AI had access to these decisions would be that they don't fire immediately, but only when I as the player choose to hold court. Then I would get the 3 default events plus whatever petitions the AI vassals have for me. Or maybe sort the vassal petitions by importance and only fire the top X petitions?

I mean, in a sense, this is what is already happening. The AI petition you when you Hold Court rather than immediately. That includes vassals.
 
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"If they do decide to embarrass you, you will lose some Prestige and Opinion with your Liege, instead of gaining them." Initiate Murder Scheme!
 
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Yes this is why. Hold court is how your AI vassals petition you for things - petition liege exists so that a human can also petition their liege (who might be human or AI) about things. :)
When I saw your name I initially thought "oooh yay, Imperator news". Forgot I was on the CK3 forum :(
 
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Also, would it be possible to petition for a bethrotal or a guardianship into the ruler's family ?

And on the homage side, can it be possible to offer a guardianship?

Well at this time the languages of France weren't one blob. Norman/anglo-Norman was one of the languages in France at the time.

Totally OT, but how will language drift be treated in the new culture system?
 
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What about a feature for lieges to arbitrate over quarreling vassals? May be for personal impasses to prevent a duel from arising to withholding taxes and levies.
 
Best dev diary yet for me. I was just thinking about this the other day. Some events in the base game touch on these ideas, such as when a vassal requests a county they have a claim on. I think there's also an event in the stewardship lifestyle that lets you talk someone out of a faction. But these are random events, and I'm thrilled to see these incorporated into the dedicated court mechanics.

Great work, can't wait!
 
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Does Transfer Claim mean your liege gives you one of their claims, or that your liege takes a title you have a claim on (that is owned by another of their vassals) and gives it to you?
Grant Claim is a liege's title, while Transfer is a fellow vassal's.
Transfer also requires enough Authority to allow Title Revocation and will not exactly be received well by the vassal relieved of their title if granted

Fantastic!
Did you notice that sign in the Second Opinion event?:p
You saw nothing ;)

Are there sanity checks for how frequently you’ll be paid homage as a liege, especially in large realms? I’m a little traumatized by getting spammed by all the vassal adultery events, vassal revealed secrets events, vassal feast invitations, vassal playdate invitations, etc…
This is something we are still balancing, but aim to ensure is tolerable!

Do traits affect the AI's decision on accepting/rejecting requests? Like if the AI King/Queen is greedy they'll be less likely to settle player debt, or if they're arbitrary they'll be more likely to reject requests in general, etc...?
Personality, stress gain, and your relationship will all play a role
 
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