Conclave Dev Diary #1

[kemazon]

This shit looks to good to be true. PDX better deliver.

 

[TheDungen]

The ERE (Byzantine Romans) was never a feudal system.
The closest it ever came to being Feudal was under the Komnedids.

Land owners never even reached the widespread control of a full county.
Counties and Themes were granted to administrators.

I would really like to see playable baronies and playable inland republics.

Until then, this is what I would propose within this new system:
Imperial Bureaucratic Administration should work this way -
It should function in a way very different from a Feudal Government, as much as Hordes or Tribes, even if it is still listed under 'Feudal' for the sake of programming simplicity.

It should be able to devolve into a Feudal system.

A very well run Feudal with a powerful Emperor should be able to break down the Feudal traditions and turn their land into a Roman-styled bureaucratic administrative monarchy.
(As in, imagine if Charlemagne had a single strong/genius son with midas touched or brilliant strategist. The whole realm was inherited to this one super-heir who forged Francia into a new Germanic Roman Empire to rival the Greek Apostates!)

Spoiler

1)
Revoking a Theme title or a County title each costs Prestige and an opinion malus just with the administrating character of the title (like with themes now).

The amount of prestige depends on how many vice-royalty counties and theme titles are held by the title holder.
It would also depend on how many counts are under him.
The more powerful the viceroy, the more prestige the revocation costs. The more titles you revoke from the same character, the more each revocation costs.

a) this would mean that if you give an administrator a theme, and he has a good stewardship stat, he might revoke counts under him (for an opinion malus with his other underlings unlike the prestige system of the emperor).

This would mean that if you revoke the Theme from him, he is still just as powerful and a threat, so you would either need to place him under another strategos or revoke all his county viceroyalties. This would of course keep encouraging a rebellion.

b) this would be a path to a powerful viceroy declaring a title hereditary.

2) If you allow a Theme level viceroy to become too powerful, with multiple themes and counts, he may invest prestige to demand the title as a family title, to pass down to his children.

If you do this, every viceroy that likes him gets an opinion boost, and he and his progeny get opinion boosts.

However, this will encourage further requests, more counties, even the theme itself, and denying these requests will eventually erase that opinion boost, remove the hereditary opinion boost towards the royal family, and anger them and their allies.

3) This would result in a hybrid system of l powerful semi-feudal landholding families mixed with Strategoi and Provincial County Administrators. Basically: what it currently looks like, except more messy.

Landowners and Viceroyalties would also have separate laws. You could set Landholders at max manpower and viceroys at max tax, for instance.

4) Exarchs would be the same as now, just a smaller universal malus if revoked, and a major prestige hit. Exarchs would not ask for any additional land as an inheritance.
This is a benefit because you can keep your viceroys content, but you are still giving an individual tremendous power over a large region which might bite you in the rear later.

5) Diminishing returns from granting multiple viceroys. So, all opinion bonuses should be reduced for viceroy grants; they also should only stack with diminishing returns.
Granting a vice-royalty would give a small malus like now (but higher), but only among other viceroys, and only if you are granting the vice-royalty to a character who already has a title.

6) Viceroys should not provide levies, instead they should contribute manpower (using the levy/tax scale earlier) to standing armies that function like retinues but cost much less per unit (but also cost prestige to form, as well as draw from that manpower pool) and can become loyal to their assigned middle general. The same would be true of Clergy and Republics: tax or manpower; not levies.

After a certain amount of loyalty, attempts to divide the standing army, reassign the general, or other actions might result in them defecting to that general depending on how powerful that General is as a vassal/viceroy of the ERE. (Inspired by the EU: Rome army loyalty like system)

Retinues of the Emperor would still exist as would the Varangian Guard; and these would remain loyal to just the Emperor.

7) Viceroys would still have levies they can call, the size of which would depending on how much manpower they are donating to the central standing armies.

This would allow viceroys to actually rise up and defend their themes when attacked, but their armies would not be controlled by the Player/Emperor.

(They would basically act like how tribes or hordes can call their underlings to war, except weaker. and limited by how much of their manpower is being drawn towards the standing armies of the Emperor).

However: only the themes/counties actively being attacked and the allies of those themes/counties would rise up to defend.

The only way the entire empire would raise the local levies of the themes would be if a jihad is called against the ERE, or if a Horde declares a war for the title of the ERE.

Again, these armies would be small if the Emperor has set the manpower commitments of the Strategoi to max.

Thoughts?

Additions?

Simplification?

Please take this apart constructively if you disagree with something; and please try and find something you think could work or is a good idea if you find something you think is a bad idea.

Thanks!

While I agree that the centrlaised empires should have their own government type it should at the end of the day be a weaker one. Or atleast they should be in a position where it's prone to majoy bursts of infighting ever 200-300 years and lose half the empire.

 

[Ruwaard]

While I agree that the centrlaised empires should have their own government type it should at the end of the day be a weaker one. Or atleast they should be in a position where it's prone to majoy bursts of infighting ever 200-300 years and lose half the empire.

Moreover I hope that Late Administration will provide a good balanced alternative. However until we know more about that, this is just speculation.

 

[Zolotaya]

While I agree that the centrlaised empires should have their own government type it should at the end of the day be a weaker one. Or atleast they should be in a position where it's prone to majoy bursts of infighting ever 200-300 years and lose half the empire.

Yes, because the ERE lost half of its territory every 200 - 300 years. Let's not forget the HRE, another or Russia or ... this desire to see chaos every 200 years out of boredom is something Paradox should ignore. Especially since 95% of those making these whines never complete campaigns.

 

[Hector of Troy]

... this desire to see chaos every 200 years out of boredom is something Paradox should ignore. Especially since 95% of those making these whines never complete campaigns.

95% won't complete campaigns because they get too bored, because their empires are huge, solid and stable like a rock. A moderate amount of chaos is needed if campaigns are to be finished more often.

 

[TheDungen]

Yes, because the ERE lost half of its territory every 200 - 300 years. Let's not forget the HRE, another or Russia or ... this desire to see chaos every 200 years out of boredom is something Paradox should ignore. Especially since 95% of those making these whines never complete campaigns.

It kind of did in the ck2 era (and the time roughly around it). In the 600ds lost half the empire to the initial muslim expansion, 1081 (roughly 400-500 years later), lost anatolia (roughly half of what was left of the empire) and 1204 (rougly a century later) get's completly fractured into 4 diffrent empires (latin empire, empire of trebizond, empire of nikaea, and despotate of epirus) which eventually ends up being combined to a byzantum again (baring trebizond) but then roughly 200 years later they lost the entire empire.
The mechanics for their empires should obviously reflect this, the empire does better internally for the msot part but when shit really does hit the fan it does so in a truly epic fashion.
And I have only desire that there is roughly as much dynamism in the game as there was in real life history. Unfortunatly the game has plenty of blobs who are simply to big to fail. As for finishing campaigns I think I've finished 6 or 7, don't know if that is a lot or not, but it's certainly not never. Granted those were with mods.

 

[Groogy]

Privilege of being a dev.
Long live Prutt-Bert the Drunkard of the Guideschi! Long may he reign!

My own council hates my guts and that bastard the King of Italy, Frédéric of the Karlings still will not let me into his Council. He fears the strength the duke of Spoleto has on the Italian Peninsula. I'll have to settle for taking the Sicilian island of the hands of the Mohammedans.

Update:
Rageair has formed the Sunni Empire of Jardarus which borders the mighty Knytling Kingdom of Denmark ruled by the Aesir worshipping King Knut.


And I finished my reclamation of Sicily and handed it out to be ruled by my younger brother Fjant-Frants. Now since the King of Italy still refuses to give me my place in the council its time to start plotting to create my own Kingdom of Sicily....That fool will regret the day he refused my will!

 

[Plushie]

While I agree that the centrlaised empires should have their own government type it should at the end of the day be a weaker one. Or atleast they should be in a position where it's prone to majoy bursts of infighting ever 200-300 years and lose half the empire.

It should be less about whether they are inherently weaker and more about them being inherently more expensive. Being a centralized empire should be about paying people to do what you would normally rely on hereditary vassals to do in a feudal realm. Viceroys should cost their liege money (while still delivering tax income from their area of responsibility -- just taking some off the top indirectly -- a salary), there should be some kind of slider that lets you 'pay' your levies in return for higher morale or something (represents well the landed soldiers of the theme system fairly well), there should be a trade-off between levy size and tax income from a province (you should not be able to maximize both at the same time, and there should be opinion maluses in both directions, with vassals/viceroys liking you the most when they have the least obligations period), and there need to be strong incentives to pass off privileges for favors to save money (so, giving hereditary titles to get people to like you well enough to do stuff for you without having to pay them in either gifts or salary; or passing laws that decentralize the realm gives you HUGE opinion bonuses with your vassals and administrators).

Not only would this emulate tolerably well the centralized, bureaucratic empires that existed in places outside western Europe in the main time period of CK2, it also creates the possibility of moving realistically from a government style like that to a more feudalized realm. That you means you can be more historically accurate and start even the Franks and other early western and central European governments at a mildly centralized level (as the post-Roman Germanic kingdoms actually were -- 'count' was an appointed office under Charlemagne) that later devolves into feudal decentralization. Think about it: When does the player ever voluntarily lower crown authority in the current game? Pretty much never. However, a game where the trade-off is between being able to get all your vassals on side with you as you plan a great war against a foreign enemy or dealing with the foreign enemy while keeping one eye turned back at your vassals? Or one where you have to choose between paying your levies less (or not at all) and being able to continue to pay for viceroyalties instead of hereditary vassals?

Combine these with a few alterations (like factions demanding hereditary titles, an 'agricultural' technology that increases the income potential of baronies and bishoprics over the course of the game, with trade and production technologies that do the same for cities) and you've got a game that can actually look like real life history. Kings in Western Europe will begin with all the authority and power they had in real life, but will find themselves increasingly too cash poor to keep it up. They'll find themselves bargaining for rights and privileges with their vassals in times of crisis and leaking these same powers in times of weak kings/minorities. After a couple of unlucky rolls with their kings, players will find they've had to give up a few levels of crown authority, all their viceroyalties and their rights to give out new ones, some levels of tax rates, and had to give in to council demands for law changes more times than they'd like, all to keep their vassals happy, just like pretty much happened in real life. They have to rely for their armies on the good will of these vassals, keep them happy to avoid as many rebellions as possible (and make sure they can win when some inevitably happen), and generally let their realms become more and more feudal as time passes.

Then, as their tech increases, as they get access to more and more retinues, they can start spurning their vassals more and more. By the end of the game they've got the money to start appointing viceroyals again, to have retinues they rely on for defeating foreign enemies and rebellious vassals instead of having to play politics keeping vassals with large armies on their side, and can start to move their vassal obligations away from levy manpower into taxes, just like in the bastard feudalism of real life.

Meanwhile, players in the Byzantine Empire, for example, can have a bit more technology/richer provinces/some other way of representing the wealth of south-eastern Europe and western Asia in this time period, so they can keep the whole thing up longer than in western Europe. They're held back by these things still being really expensive, just a bit easier for them to afford than for nations elsewhere. They're also surrounded by enemies that look more like them than like western European countries. They could also be made to suffer with a mechanic that lets commanders in Imperial administration countries join factions and revolt with their armies.

Paradox has got all the pieces there, they just have to make it all happen. It doesn't even require gigantic changes in mechanics.

 

[Woifee]

One question remains: Can I now have a horse in my Council?

 

[Lhutien]

One question remains: Can I now have a horse in my Council?

The most important question of our time.

 

[Galaahd]

cut

Are you going North Korea mode?

 

[Robert II]

One question remains: Can I now have a horse in my Council?

There exists a mod on steam to get a fully functional glitterhoof chancellor.

 

[Groogy]

I think you guys messed up on the alert art. In the vanilla alerts the stain glass goes into the focal item but in the new ones it doesn't. It makes them look like they pop out more. You can easily fix it by just adding a few black lines into the focal item.

Nice spot, fixed now.

 

[Loderingo]

Kings in Western Europe will begin with all the authority and power they had in real life, but will find themselves increasingly too cash poor to keep it up. They'll find themselves bargaining for rights and privileges with their vassals in times of crisis and leaking these same powers in times of weak kings/minorities. After a couple of unlucky rolls with their kings, players will find they've had to give up a few levels of crown authority, all their viceroyalties and their rights to give out new ones, some levels of tax rates, and had to give in to council demands for law changes more times than they'd like, all to keep their vassals happy, just like pretty much happened in real life. They have to rely for their armies on the good will of these vassals, keep them happy to avoid as many rebellions as possible (and make sure they can win when some inevitably happen), and generally let their realms become more and more feudal as time passes.
.

For me this is the key point. If you look at history sometimes the King was on top, sometimes the vassals. For example, if you look at England:

Henry III - weak king who lost the Second Barons' war
Edward I - strong king. Conquered Wales and partly Scotland
Edward II - weak king. Problems with the barons. Overthrown
Edward III - Restored crown authority. reigned for 50 years
Richard II - Trouble with barons. Seen as a tyrant. Overthrown

 

[Alpharius001]

View attachment 153754

Are those some redone russian portraits I see there?

 

[Ashagar]

For me this is the key point. If you look at history sometimes the King was on top, sometimes the vassals. For example, if you look at England:

Henry III - weak king who lost the Second Barons' war
Edward I - strong king. Conquered Wales and partly Scotland
Edward II - weak king. Problems with the barons. Overthrown
Edward III - Restored crown authority. reigned for 50 years
Richard II - Trouble with barons. Seen as a tyrant. Overthrown

And sometimes issues are taken advantage of yes like the french king taking advantage of the issues between Henry the second and his four sons(which henry admittedly made worse for himself by crowning young henry co-king then letting him feel neglected) or the taking advantage of King John being distrusted by his nobles, him being suspected of offing his nephew and heir Arthur of Brittany and the fact the Normans quite simply despised the people of Anjou.

Of course this admittedly was the same french king who won a victory over the HRE by virtue of fighting a excommunicated emperor who was all but formally deposed by the nobles and the pope and who thus had very limited forces at his command.

 

[Orko80]

I just hope you also look at the options as playing as a vassal. And that we finaly can see all law modifiers like the liege.

 

[Tuominen]

aaargh... so dont want to start new game before conclave is ready. Early 2016.. gonna start holding my breath!

 

[Sonmi]

Are those some redone russian portraits I see there?

Nice catch, but I think that's a Cuman face with the Russian culture.

If you look at the character's parents though, the father clearly has a Russian portrait for his father. Anyone knows if a child with a Muslim-faced parent and a Slavic-faced one can turn out Cuman?

But one shouldn't also dismiss the possibility that this character's appearance is a result of the dreaded seduction focus, with his mother potentially having a Cuman lover.

 

[Finnishviking]

Nice catch, but I think that's a Cuman face with the Russian culture.

If you look at the character's parents though, the father clearly has a Russian portrait for his father. Anyone knows if a child with a Muslim-faced parent and a Slavic-faced one can turn out Cuman?

But one shouldn't also dismiss the possibility that this character's appearance is a result of the dreaded seduction focus, with his mother potentially having a Cuman lover.

Erm to me that just looks like another Cuman. Also seed is strong and him being a bastard is never out of the option.