• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Showing developer posts only. Show all posts in this thread.

Birken

Mastermind
4 Badges
Sep 28, 2009
877
3.830
  • March of the Eagles
  • Pirates of Black Cove
  • 500k Club
  • Paradox Order
Greetings!

I know last year featured a lot of dev diaries with very little information about new features of the game. The reason for this was the lack of an announcement of the expansion and we had decided not to talk about the expansion before the announcement. All that has changed now and last week @Doomdark gave you an overview of the features we’ve added and the aim of the expansion.

This week we’re going to go a bit deeper into the new council mechanics.

@Groogy has written the following presentation of the council:

So to the meat of this expansion and my favorite part. The empowerment of the council. As we promised we were gonna let the council in on the day to day governing of your realm becoming more than simply a privy council. Now in fact the strongest vassals in your realm will threaten with civil war if they are not given a position where they can become part of your council and in turn giving them influence on the politics of your realm. Having them on the council prevents them from joining factions and as a liege you can use this to stabilize his/her realm. The councillor will adopt a certain position, these are the colorful icons you see, and this position will dictate how they align themselves with the decisions you take but we will cover that in a later dev diary.
1.jpg

Since King Alfonso is a paranoid guy and constantly in hiding, his realm is mostly ruled by his council...

The councillors can choose to either yay, nay or abstain from a vote. You also get a vote (always voting yes when you’re suggesting something) and your own vote decides in the case of a tie. The characters abstaining from a vote are always swayed by the distribution of diplomacy skill between the yay and nay sayers. Meaning that some highly influential members might turn the tide in a vote as they persuade the voters that have no opinion on the matter. If the council has a majority voting yes on an action, you’ll be free to take that action, but if the council votes against the action, you face the choice of either going against the council or do something else. Going against the council will make it discontent as you have broken the contract with them. Such action also incur tyranny and the council members become free to create and join factions again for a limited time.

For conclave we have also changed how regencies work and the old system with a single regent deciding everything is gone. Instead, If you are in a regency, the regent is put on the council and will vote instead of you and you don’t have the option of going against a council vote.

2.jpg



The council also have powers to vote on your laws and even propose that a vote shall be started on something they want by cashing in on a favor they might have with their liege. But we will cover the redone laws in the next dev diary as well.

Next up @Moah, our newest addition to the team, will explain some of the new tools you have to influence your council members and how you as a vassal can make your liege do things for you:

Hello everyone,

I’m @Moah and I joined Paradox and the CK2 team recently. I’m here today to talk about Favors. As you know, in the game relationships to other characters are important, especially family. But family, friendships and rivalries are not the only kind of relationships that exist. Sometimes you just do a favor for someone, and hope that somewhere down the line, they’ll return it.

And since in the CK2 timeline debts, honor and duty had such a huge impact, we’ve modelled that through a mechanic we cleverly called “favors”.


Getting Support on the Council

As a liege (or part of the council), you can call in a favor on a council member to make them vote like you on the council for one year. This can be used to get an ok to revoke that title you want, execute someone you want to see dead and start that war that you’ve longed for, but the killjoys of the council is constantly saying no to, without the hassle of tyranny and factions. If you don’t have a favor to call in, you can request support from a council member in exchange of a favor. They can turn this down, but if they accept they’ll vote just as if you called a favor on them. The difference is that now you owe them a favor. This is one of the basic generators of favors and a way that vassals gain favors on their lieges. As a liege you can often gain a favor by fulfilling the ambition of a vassal and everyone can accept a sum of money in exchange for a favor. When dealing with powerful lords, you can expect their price to be quite high however.

You can only owe someone at most one favor at a time, so if you already owe them, you’ll have to wait in requesting support again until they’ve used that favor to gain something back. Council members can also call favors on each other and a clever vassal can set up scenarios where they control how the council votes.


Forcing Acceptance

Say you’ve accepted to support your liege on the council, or you paid the emperor of the HRE a large sum of money and you want your investment to pay off. With a favor in hand you can make them accept a marriage (some limitations apply) and gain that Non-Aggression pact you’ve been longing for.

Invite to Court, Educate Child and the Embargo interactions can also use favors to force acceptance and as the liege you can use a favor to keep a character out of factions.


Building a Strong Faction

If you have favors from your fellow vassals, you can use those to get them to join your faction (if they are valid to join the faction) and since they’re bound by the favor, they cannot freely leave the faction.


Pressing a Claim

If your liege owes you a favor, you can use that favor to propose a war declaration where he/she presses one of your claims. In order to do this, the council needs to vote in favor of the war declaration. The liege can deny your proposition, but doing so incurs tyranny and makes the council discontent.


There are more uses of favors that will be presented along with their respective features, but these were some of the basic ones.

3.png


4.png



Now @rageair will walk you through another new feature, the Realm Peace and how it will help you bring order to the realm.


Realm Peace

5.jpg


Previously, your level of Crown Authority decided if vassals were allowed to declare war or not. As of Conclave we’ve replaced this system with a more intuitive one - Realm Peace. With Realm Peace the ruler, in accordance with the Council, decide when wars waged between your vassals have to end. Do you need to change your Succession Law but your vassals just won’t stop fighting? Is the precarious balance of power in your realm being shifted by warmongering vassals? Enforce Realm Peace to make them stop!


After pressing the Realm Peace button your vassals have 3 months before the peace takes effect, after which all wars will end with a white peace. The Peace is then enforced for 60 months before your vassals can declare any internal wars. A long cooldown ensures that you’ll only want to use this ability when it’s really important, and when playing as a vassal you won’t ever find yourself in a completely deadlocked position where you’re not able to attack at all any longer!


Favors and Realm Peace

As a vassal, you can use a favor on your liege to interact with realm peace in two ways. First, you can block your liege from using the Realm Peace or stop a pending Realm Peace from taking effect. This makes sure that you actually get time to win the war that you invested all your precious coin to hire those Swiss mercenaries to fight for you and don’t just end up with nothing gained and empty coffers.

Secondly, you can ask your liege to use the Realm Peace for you. This can be pretty handy when you’re working your way to power and your rivals decide it’s time to partition your lands and join those parts into their own lands.
6.png



That’s all for this week. Next week we’ll take a closer look at how council members vote, the new education system and how we’re turning feudal lords into small business owners.
 
  • 221
  • 58
  • 2
Reactions:
The advisers are there to add more voters for larger realms.
 
  • 54
  • 9
Reactions:
Crown Authority is removed if you have Conclave enabled. It has been replaced by other laws.
 
  • 72
  • 11
Reactions:
Is there a limit to the number of advisers?
In the vanilla game the current limit as of writing this is 2 (7 total council members) but if you want more there is probably gonna be a mod or two that will add a lot more.
 
  • 36
  • 4
Reactions:
Can you get favours on people outside the realm? This could make a great supplement to the diplomacy system, if you can call in a favour for one-off help with a war (subject to a vote of their council, of course), or buy off your enemy's ally.
Yes, you can get favours from people outside the realm.
 
  • 53
  • 6
Reactions:
Hm, still very promising and nice, but still very potentially dangerous if it turns out to be too hardcoded. Will it be possible to disable Enforce Realm Peace for certain cultures/religions? It is possible to prevent it now by gating the highest level of crown authority, but will it be as well with this new system?
Will it be possible to add more requirements to what determines if an AI Councilmember's personality is Zealous or Agreeable or whatnot? Or if a Vassal can be given the position of Adviser at all depending on his/his liege's religion/culture/traits? Or to when the various decisions to ask or call in a favour may be available?
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
Wether a vassal can be given a position or not is already moddable, isn't it? Oh, nevermind, I was thinking of minor titles. Does FROM in job_titles not point to the employer by any chance?
Now it is, yes, but since the whole system is being overhauled, it might not be in the future, that's why I ask.
That is just one of the possible issues, though. It isn't just about having moddability on who can be put on a Council, it is also about being able to mod how different cultures/religions/governments councilmembers tend to behave.
 
"Send Gift" seems obsolete now that there is "Buy Favor", doesn't it?
What really is the difference?
One increases opinion and is cheaper while one gives you a favor and is more expensive.
 
  • 45
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
If you go against the vote of your council, will you still take a relations hit with those who supported you?
Yes because you still go against the will of the council, just because they agree doesn't mean they support your decision to bypass their authority.
 
  • 17
  • 11
Reactions:
Another modding question: if I add a new targetted_decesion - is it possible to make the council vote for/against it or does the council vote on hard coded diplomatic actions only (probably a question to @Groogy or @Captain Gars).

It's moddable for targeted decisions yes.
 
  • 14
  • 1
Reactions:
This favor vs. favour debate is ridiculous. Just call them hedgehogs and be done with it.

it's very simple. "Call in a hedgehog" to get the council to vote on your things. Or "owe someone a hedgehog" and pledge them your assistance.

Foolproof.

I support this motion.
 
  • 26
  • 2
Reactions:
Ok, this thread is moving to quick for me to answer in time. Much of this might have been answered already.

"Send Gift" seems obsolete now that there is "Buy Favor", doesn't it?
What really is the difference?

Gift gives better opinion. Favor gives you a one time use token that have special use. Gifts are also cheaper than favors.

Can't join a faction if you're on a council huh? Take that Littlefinger!

This has been stated already, but when the council is discontent, you'll be free to join factions for a time. Every succession will make the council discontent, thus a ruler should do best in making sure the realm is stable before dying (ie don't piss everyone off on your deathbed).

Will there be an option to refuse a favour when someone comes to collect on it? Obviously this would have penalties which could be severe depending on who you're denying.
It just seems strange to me that a favour would act like some sort of binding contract. When someone comes to collect, you absolutely have to do what they ask, no matter what?

Some uses are binding and some give you the option of turning it down. If you give someone a favor token, you've basically already accepted some future action. From an rp-perspective you can consider that the deal was struck when the favor was gained and not when it was actually used.

Do you still incur regular penalties for executing/imprisoning people without charge or revoking without a claim?

Yes

Are favors inheritance or do they cancel if either party dues?

They're personal and not inherited.

Sorry, but fulfilling ambitions does not work correctly.

For example, a girl in my court wants to be married desperately. I marry her to some courtier in another realm. Now she has "fulfilled my ambition" relations bonus to the ruler of that other realm, not me.

I don't think tying major features to a broken mechanic is a good idea.

Ambitions have been reworked for Conclave.

Will we be able to mod council votes into targeted decisions?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but the voting system is moddable.

Can't a sufficiently powerful vassal ignore realm peace?

Say a vassal who control 50-60% of the land, has a spot on the council, but still the council call for peace. Can't the vassal just force the war through anyway, risking war with liege?

If you don't like it, just declare war on your liege. Realm peace won't block independence.

Also a question: is there a viable way to play a certain ruler by consistently ignoring your council and doing what you and only you wish? Or is it inevitable that you'll soon find yourself in a precarious situation in that case?

In other words, the question (which was discussed before numerous times) is can you be successful as a tyrant under certain circumstances?

Yes. You can either just ignore the council and gain some tyranny, or you can make sure you don't have a council by having the correct law setup. More on laws next week, but absolute rule is a perfectly valid play style, especially for smaller realms where factions can't grow too big.

This sounds quite good but I can see a glaring weakness already.

Faction revolts are laughably weak right now, because they are almost always much, much smaller in realm size (thus levy size) than their liege, but use the same levy calculations. Since "dangerous" factions, such as those made up of the largest/most powerful vassals, are now more a result of strategic player decisions, shouldn't the teeth be put back in them (give rebel titles a hidden law/effect that gives them 100% vassal levies, as it was in the glory days of vassal revolts)?

How strong will revolts be, or will they remain non-threatening to the liege?

Factions have been improved and are more dangerous in terms of troop sizes now. The ai has also been changed to prioritize fewer strong factions than to have every lord push his/her own agenda by themselves. Some of the new factions are actually better to just yield to now.

If you go against the vote of your council, will you still take a relations hit with those who supported you?

Yes, they're not angry for you doing something they don't like, but for being a tyrant and not respecting the will of your subjects.
 
  • 42
Reactions:
I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but the voting system is moddable.
I mean how declare war has the councils voting on whether they are for or against it as seen in this image from the OP. Will we be able to make a targeted decision have the council vote on whether they are for or against it?
 
Just to be clear, while you can only own an individual a single favor, you can owe multiple people favors at once, yes?

And, presuming that is true, can someone use a favor to effectively counter the use of someone else's favor? Example, you want a council vote to go your way so you use a favor to get a particularly influential vassal to vote your way. Could someone else who said vassal owes a favor too as well, cash it in to then get him to then vote the other way?

You can owe several people favors, but only one favor at a time can be activated to force your voting.

Is this save game compatible? (Tried reading through the thread but could not find it.)
It is compatible, but since a lot of laws have been added and removed with Conclave, you can expect some laws to be reset to their default values.
 
  • 9
Reactions:
So if I want to kill the king and the majority of the council owe me favours. Can I be saved from imprisonment if found out?

If the king cares about the will of the council, you can buy yourself some time at least.

Can events and decisions interact with favors?

Seems to me that the event where you get dirt on someone should allow you to leverage a favor out of it, and the event where you're bankrupt and someone, whether vassal or liege, gives you dosh ought also to make a favor change hands.

Yes, favors can be fully interacted with through events and decisions.
 
  • 11
Reactions:
The CK2 team MP continues... Italy is a Carolingian Hedgemony while @Moah who have reformed the Romuvan faith is a Romuvan Eldership. So just gonna give you guys some teaser images here :D

ygCIc71.png

AzQS21G.png
 
  • 14
  • 6
Reactions: