Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries
Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • 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.
Crusader Kings II 69947 Bug Reports 19719 User Modifications 10606 Suggestions 5969 Tech Support 6376 After Action Reports
Previous dev diary Next dev diary
Show only dev responses

Dev Diary 11: Stopping The Snowball

Hey! So today we will talk about some mechanics we’ve added to make other rulers react to what happens in the world. We want to slow down the snowball and prolong the time it takes to conquer the world, so it shouldn’t be as easy to do. Snowballs are pretty evil, just like medieval rulers.

Just as with the shattered retreat mechanic we took inspiration from Europa Universalis 4 in our decision to add Coalitions. Our coalitions however are based on an Infamy value instead of Aggressive Expansion. You might recognize the name Infamy from our old games, but even though it shares the name it will work quite differently.

Infamy is limited to be within the range of 0 to 100% and will slowly decay over time based on how strong your max military potential is. When you hit 25% infamy, coalitions will be unlocked and AIs will start joining them based on how threatened they feel.Your infamy will serve as a hint on how aggressive and dangerous other rulers think your realm is. You gain infamy primarily by conquering land through war or by inheriting a fair maidens huge tracts of land.

The amount of Infamy you gain is based on the action you do, how much land you take and how large your realm already is. So for instance the Kaiser of the HRE declaring a war for Flanders and taking it is going to make the neighbours more worried than if Pomerania manages to take Mecklenburg.
capture(56).png


Coalitions themselves are mostly defensive in Crusader Kings, if any member gets attacked by the target of the coalition they will automatically be called into the war. If a member starts a war against the target they only get a normal call to arms which they can choose to decline.

For an AI to join a coalition they will consider the relative strength between the target and themselves, how threatened they think they are and how much infamy the target has accrued. You can view the current coalition someone has against them by the diplomacy field on the character screen.

capture(54).png


But it might not be the easiest way to view it so we also added a mapmode to more easily visualize Coalitions. A nation which turns up white is the nation you have currently selected, blue will be targetable for coalitions, yellow means they have a coalition against them and Red means they are members of the coalition against the currently selected one.

capture(55).jpg
 
  • 310
  • 230
  • 40
Reactions:
Sort by date Sort by reaction score
On the one hand everything that makes blobbing harder would be a good addition because, let's face it, CK2 is pretty easy for experienced player and ridiculously easy if you start in Western Europe. On the other hand international coalitions in Medieval Ages are ahistorical. "Coalitions" did exist, but they were rare and were more like a regional response to invading hordes, primarily Mongols (Russians and Polovtsy alliance against Mongols; German, Hungarian and Czech alliance against same enemy).

I'd prefer already existing infamy mechanic to be limited to invading hordes (Mongols, Seljuks, Aztecs). As far as making blobbing harder goes, I'd like to have smarter AI both for rulers of other realms and for vassals. If Irish AI was smarter it would try to ally Scotland, France and Wales against England - "coalition" that would make sense and come from emergent gameplay instead of mechanic. If vassals were smarter they would constantly try to gain more and more power even if it directly threatens your dynasty.
 
  • 5
Reactions:
Break a few truces, gain 3x your land, get 200 infamy, build up cities and don't upgrade your demesne troop levels and hike up your taxes on everyone and reduce the levies from everyone. Watch as everyone around you gets angry, forges alliances, and declares on you cause the game simply doesn't take into account bankroll when deciding whether to attack or not. Then rake in tons of money from all these neighbors declaring and losing wars on you as well as turn the tables on them after you weaken them to get more of their land. In my opinion as the feature looks now on "paper" its a failed mechanic that will only allow a player to snowball even more.
 
  • 4
  • 1
Reactions:
TheStrangerOrg said:
leon conquering all of muslim spain would definitely alert france, but it would indeed be unlikely that theyd ally with the muslims, instead an alliance with genoa or barcelona for example would be more likely.

i think people are overvaluing the influence religion had on rulers decisions when it came to staying in power or not.
Click to expand...

When the Ummayyad's seized power in southern Iberia in the late 8th century, the northern Muslim rulers sought an alliance with Charlemagne. I think this would be best represented with a coalition.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
In the eyes of the Western European Christendom Lords, the Infamy of Seljuk should be always 100% or 0%. The reasons are:

1. They are always bad, so it's always 100%.
2. They are too far away, so it's non of our business.

So, I must question that is it a good idea to put EU IV into CK II?
 
  • 6
  • 3
Reactions:
ericyuen said:
In the eyes of the Western European Christendom Lords, the Infamy of Seljuk should be always 100% or 0%. The reasons are:

1. They are always bad, so it's always 100%.
2. They are too far away, so it's non of our business.

So, I must question that is it a good idea to put EU IV into CK II?
Click to expand...

Assuming the system is anything like the current system in EU4, distance will be a factor. So in this case the Christian lord's 100% dislike of the Seljuks would be modified by the fact that they are so far away, giving you a number somewhere between 100% and 0% - which seems right to me. The western Europeans would be unlikely to join a coalition against the Seljuks unless they expand westward enough to actually become a threat, at which point they would start to get worried about the giant Muslim empire that has been overrunning everything in its path and was now within striking distance of Rome.

So yes, it seems like a good idea to take from EU IV into CK II.
 
  • 4
  • 4
Reactions:
macd21 said:
When the Ummayyad's seized power in southern Iberia in the late 8th century, the northern Muslim rulers sought an alliance with Charlemagne. I think this would be best represented with a coalition.
Click to expand...

yea, exactly, and there are many other instances in history where rulers banded together to defeat a (stronger) foe or when their goals aligned. And some of these were cross-faith, and usally not sealed by a marriage.

ericyuen said:
In the eyes of the Western European Christendom Lords, the Infamy of Seljuk should be always 100% or 0%. The reasons are:

1. They are always bad, so it's always 100%.
2. They are too far away, so it's non of our business.

So, I must question that is it a good idea to put EU IV into CK II?
Click to expand...

if its after the crusades started, then for sure. not neccesarily the seljuks, but whomever holds or threathens the jerusalem.
 
ericyuen said:
In the eyes of the Western European Christendom Lords, the Infamy of Seljuk should be always 100% or 0%. The reasons are:

1. They are always bad, so it's always 100%.
2. They are too far away, so it's non of our business.
Click to expand...
Tell us more about how your personal speculation based on limited information = 100% fact. Oh wait - it doesn't. :rolleyes:
 
I don't think that the majority those who are skeptical of the dev diary are saying "We have all the information, and this mechanic will suck with 100 % certainty". I think that most people who are skeptical are saying "We don't have all the information, and currently I don't like the way X, Y, and/or Z seems to work".

Now, we don't have any right to demand that the devs reply to our questions (and even less right to demand that they change anything), but one of the nicest things about this forum is that the devs often reply to questions. If the devs did not want anyone to discuss or give feedback to a dev diary, I expect that they would lock the thread.


If there's one thing that can be seen from this thread, it is that those who are replying to and rating the first post have very different opinions on Infamy and Coalitions based on what we currently know. I doubt that the final implementation will satisfy everyone (regardless of how it will work). People have different preferences when it comes to balancing, blobbing, and other aspects. We can discuss/disagree about historical precedents, gameplay vs. realism, etc. and might get some more information (I would personally like to see all the questions @Slayen asked on page 3 answered as they cover a lot of the aspects we don't know about yet), but we are not going to reach some kind of consensus in this thread.
 
  • 9
Reactions:
Silversweeeper said:
I think that most people who are skeptical are saying "We don't have all the information, and currently I don't like the way X, Y, and/or Z seems to work".
Click to expand...
Well said. We can make perhaps educated guesses based upon information in this dev diary and existing mechanics, but yes, we definitely do not have all the information on the mechanic. Here's hoping some of the fears raised in this thread prove to be unfound (and that factions get strengthened for some internal source of countering blobbing).
 
  • 4
Reactions:
I just hope that it isn't another nerf just because of hardcore players. I made A LOT of people buy CK2, but most of them are interested by the sandbox-roleplay aspect.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
Silversweeeper said:
I don't think that the majority those who are skeptical of the dev diary are saying "We have all the information, and this mechanic will suck with 100 % certainty". I think that most people who are skeptical are saying "We don't have all the information, and currently I don't like the way X, Y, and/or Z seems to work


If there's one thing that can be seen from this thread, it is that those who are replying to and rating the first post have very different opinions on Infamy and Coalitions based on what we currently know. I doubt that the final implementation will satisfy everyone (regardless of how it will work). People have different preferences when it comes to balancing, blobbing, and other aspects. We can discuss/disagree about historical precedents, gameplay vs. realism, etc. and might get some more information (I would personally like to see all the questions @Slayen asked on page 3 answered as they cover a lot of the aspects we don't know about yet), but we are not going to reach some kind of consensus in this thread.
Click to expand...
I just got annoyed with people saying it will kill the game but what slayen asked does need to be answered and probably will be soon hopefully
 
brobman22 said:
I just got annoyed with people saying it will kill the game but what slayen asked does need to be answered and probably will be soon hopefully
Click to expand...

I am not a fan of the "It *will* ruin CK2 with 100 % certainty!" position, but I am also not a fan of the "Stop asking questions/speculating!" position. Both have their flaws (either "Any further information will suck" or "You can't ask for more information, but you can't speculate either").
 
  • 4
Reactions:
Silversweeeper said:
I am not a fan of the "It *will* ruin CK2 with 100 % certainty!" position, but I am also not a fan of the "Stop asking questions/speculating!" position. Both have their flaws (either "Any further information will suck" or "You can't ask for more information, but you can't speculate either").
Click to expand...
Im not saying don't speculate I like it when people speculate but im not a fan of when people say this will kill CK2 which sees like a bit of hyperbole
 
  • 2
Reactions:
King Dave said:
I don't entirely blame Paradox for this either. It seems to me that they've caved in to pressure from map painters who use every exploit possible to conquere the world in the fastest possible time and then complain that the game is too easy.
Click to expand...

This... Just make an optional "gamer" dlc and let's go.
 
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
Dracko81 said:
Take it from someone has ~3,000 hrs of CK2 and ~200 hr of EU4 under their belt
Click to expand...

Maybe that is the problem. 3000 ? I have 900, which is twice as much as the guy I know who played the most.

I do not think that featuring the game based on 3000h players is a good thing. I actually know at least two players who stopped the game because of past "balancing".

Maybe Paradox should launch a general survey to ALL players, to actually know how many find the game too easy.
 
  • 2
Reactions:
People aren't criticizing the content, it's the focus of their attention. They are targeting an issue that is not even remotely as much of one as multiplayer.

But I can see the devs are thumbing up everybody who is defending this forced future patch. So it's not like complaining is going to do anything.
 
  • 8
  • 4
Reactions:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back