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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
 
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gain infamy when inhereting from a 'fair' maiden?

By the time you get the inheritance, it has (probably) been coming your way for quite some time, making it not really a shock/threat anymore to your neighbours.
I think the infmy should be gained the moment the inheritance gets secured(either by mariage to a childless women, or by killing the other heirs until you're on top). The moment it becomes apparant that you're expanding is the moment you've secured the inheritance, not the moment you've got it.
 
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I'll be so infamous. Coalitions bring it on.
 
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this looks really really really bad
the only good thing that could come out of it is alliances that aren't based on marriage,dynasty or random events (friendship)
having it carry over from rulers is some supreme hogwash as well, vassals don't care that the new king was the son of their old friend and beloved king that granted them a duchy just 3 months ago, no they'll start rebelling before their old friend's corpse is even cold
but somehow his AE will live on causing all foreign enemies to hate you as well

i'dd much rather see a way for vassals to ally foreign realms and organize revolts with their aid and for rulers to be able to call in vassals if they are allied regardless of government type
things that i find are sorely missing for a game that wants to simulate the medieval period
 
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Which isn't right either... As Frederick ruled the HRE from Sicily... Northern Germany was less rebelious than Southern Germany ;) They were so far from the emperor, that they didn't care about him.

To be fair, the real HRE had significant bonuses to compensate and make vassals content, mainly always having the game equivalent of autonomous vassals or low crown authority...

But let us be fair, the Crusader kingdoms were de facto fully autonomous, largely due to distance...
 
I like this idea but, based on what we can read in the DD, I have some concerns.

1. In the middle ages, rulers didn't really care about the actions of other rulers unless it directly affected them. That was because they were busy managing their own realms. If the king of Hungary heard that the Byzantine Empire has reclaimed Anatolia from the Seljuk Turks, he would be like "Thank God, they're not massing on our borders!" and not like "That infamous Basileus! I'll have his head for this!"
What I propose is that make infamy an opinion modifier and make it add up to the "political concerns" modifier in the AI decision making -> you can't blob because you don't have that many strong allies.

2. To compensate for this, focus more on the internal parts of the realm.
Centralization law: remove the vassal limit penalty the higher it goes. In my opinion, it is just silly. Vassal limit should be affected only by your own diplomacy value and that of your chancellor. Instead, incorporate the crown authority law effects into it.

3. Crown authority: this shouldn't be a law at all. This should only be an opinion modifier based on how much land you own compared to your vassals. In the patrimonial monarchy (which CK2 features too) the more land you had, the more powerful you were (mainly because you had more soldiers under your banner). The more land you have, the more likely it should be that your vassals follow you, the less, and you can end up like the HRE (-> opinion modifier).

4. In order for the above point to work, you should raise the max. number of holdings an independent ruler can have.

5. BUT if you are above your soft cap then nasty events can come up like highway robber band, thieves guild etc. to show that even kings have limits. Also, the nobles in the realm might also come up to you demanding some compensation for their services. Deny them too much and BAM! Rebellion. What this means is that after a while you just HAVE to grant land to everyone in the country or face constant rebellions led by your nobles OR you become so weak compared to your nobles that the crown authority completely erodes -> you can't blob.

I hope it didn't sound pretentious but I wanted to give my feedback to you guys, because I absolutely love your work, and I really hope you keep it up! :)
 
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An interesting thing to note: The HRE appears to be able to "buy hedgehogs" from the Seljuks, but the Jimenas in dev diary 7 could not do it from one another. Something only possible versus religious enemies? Against distant targets?

Maybe you can only buy hedgehogs as an emperor tier character?
 
Seeing what kind of mess EU4 became after coalitions were introduced
What? Coalitions have almost always been in EU4 and if anything I'd say they aren't harsh enough!
Limitations who punish the successful player?
They're not limitations, they're challanging obsticles to overcome. Nothing's stopping you fighting a coalition.
paid customers should be able to have fun if they want, no matter if that means painting half
Cheats are your friend.
Besides, "The Core of CK2 is Characters" has already been written in this topic (stated from years by you devs, to explain the main differences with EU4), why do nations suddenly get this spotlight?
Except this isnt about nations, this is exactly what youre asking for: infamy is focused on characters and dynasties, not nations. Think about it logically: if a guy conquers a ton of stuff pissing everyone off and then dies and passes that stuff to his son, people aren't going to suddenly be happy and not concerned about the massive blob at their doorstep.
 
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You should only be able to join the coalition of a neighbouring state or one that you have coastal access to, and multiple coalitions against one country with different "leaders" should be possible. Otherwise you end up with problems like the picture in the devpost - how are the Karakhanids and the Fatimids supposed to diplomatically communicate and organize a joint military effort when they're thousands of miles way from one another and separated entirely from each other by the territory of their mortal enemy?

@Groogy
 
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To be fair, the real HRE had significant bonuses to compensate and make vassals content, mainly always having the game equivalent of autonomous vassals or low crown authority...

But let us be fair, the Crusader kingdoms were de facto fully autonomous, largely due to distance...
Actually, no. If anything, the attempts of Frederick to rule from Sicily were what gave birth to the intense autonomy of Germany; the interregnum of the 14th century didn't help. But, as I said, where a healthy country may bear a push, a cracked one might not.
 
Some personality traits should minorate or increase the infamy as it depicts the treat a realm/ruler inspire to his neighbours.
 
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1. In the middle ages, rulers didn't really care about the actions of other rulers unless it directly affected them. That was because they were busy managing their own realms. If the king of Hungary heard that the Byzantine Empire has reclaimed Anatolia from the Seljuk Turks, he would be like "Thank God, they're not massing on our borders!" and not like "That infamous Basileus! I'll have his head for this!"

I would assume that there's some weighing based on religion. As in Christians don't much care if you attack pagans or heathens etc.
 
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You gain infamy primarily by conquering land through war or by inheriting a fair maidens huge tracts of land.
Why gain infamy from peacefully inheriting land?

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.
Automatically meaning they go to war against you even if they have 100 relation with you?
 
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People have been nagging for anti-blobbing mechanisms and now they are here. This... can be both good or bad depending on how fast infamy decays and is inherited. Going to withhold judgment until it's released and we get to see it in action.

What should accompany this is a buff to retinues for feudals and tribals.
 
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I also hope that we can start to expand casus belli now. Declaring conquest for one county and occupying all of Bavaria should give us a chance to keep much that with some infamy gained.
 
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But thats completely inconsistent. I'm a person not a nation this isn't EU4.
As much as I have my doubts about this addition, personally this is the one thing I agree with on the devs. At least for Christian feudals, people put a lot of value in your family line. Were you the son of a great king you would on average have an easier time than being the son of a despicable despot, not to mention the fact that you were probably raised close to him and likely adopted their traits. For tribal societies, or any society that has more of a "might makes right" doctrine, I feel like this should be considerably less important, as it was less important who your father was overall (as it should be: both for good and for bad) with the higher short reign penalty and the like.
 
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