Dev Diary 11: Stopping The Snowball

[Faerillis]

Why are you so set against giving internal problems? Those should arguably the biggest reason for empires to be restrained, or for their bloating, weakening, and collapse. The HRE diluted because the Emperors tried to wiggle some concessions from a horde of vassals and ended up giving too much; the ERE started creaking when the old governors lobbied for hereditary rule, and got it; the Anarchy at Samarra, the English Anarchy, the dissolution of Al-Andalus, and the near collapse of France, were all movements that started on the inside. Sometimes they got a final push from outside, but those were pushes that a sane country of their size would have born without difficulties. So, why? Why add coalition, which are iffy but workable in EU4 but make absolutely no sense in CK2?

Probably out of difficulty. They have factions, rivalries, plots, ambitions, viceroyal maluses etc... within Empires and it'd be quite difficult to even come up with another layer of internal issues to add to that. The big options would be tied to Retinues as they allow players to control their nations with impunity. You could Retinues tied to the Ruler not his Heirs but that would not be fun for anyone — they're expensive enough at early levels. You could fire events where random Commanders from your Retinue arise when an Heir takes over or if the Ruler is Craven where they demand a Title or they'll rebel but Retinues give you a near infinite warrant to expand anyways, so you wouldn't be short on land.

I do agree with you that the biggest problems for Empires should be their biggest weakness, so I'd love to hear your ideas on how handle that.

 

[gdj]

How does this work if you play as a vassal?

Let´s say i´m a powerful duke in the HRE and expand like crazy outside of the HRE. The effect would nor only be the enlargement of my realm, but HRE grows as well. Who gets infamy? Me? The emperor? Both?

 

[Zooboss]

Wouldn't a coalition of vassals against their liege be a faction? Hopefully the faction mechanic is adjusted to take advantage of these new mechanics as well.

The main difference is factions are offensive (we gather forces then declare war to achieve something) while coalitions would be defensive (if our liege imprisons, revokes, we all join in on the war against the tyranny of our liege)

 

[Suzaku]

One question, what happens when a vassal of the HRE takes land from another vassal of the HRE. For example lets say Dutchy of Brandenburg takes over the Dutchy of Saxony? Does Brandenburg gets infamy?

 

[Silversweeeper]

How does this work if you play as a vassal?

Let´s say i´m a powerful duke in the HRE and expand like crazy outside of the HRE. The effect would nor only be the enlargement of my realm, but HRE grows as well. Who gets infamy? Me? The emperor? Both?

Based on what Groogy wrote before, you would get 100% Infamy and the emperor 50 % for your wars (assuming you are a direct vassal).

 

[Rascar Capac]

I fail to see how vassal's infamy is any punishment, as liege protects you anyway. Unless your fellow vassals gang against you? And if they can, why not take them out first?

Wait, do we now have way to weaken our liege while leaving him alone? Just accrue a coalition against him!

 

[Dakka]

How will this affect countries fighting other religions? It makes sense if Castile eats a lot of the Moors and they band together, but surely it would not make much sense if the Iberians are crusading against Islam and suddenly France is scared because of how much land Castile took?

 

[Kanaric]

Is this something that actually happened in this era?

I'm seriously doubting it.

Many people play this as a historical simulation, a story, or a world building game. If this isn't a historical feature is seriously detracts from that kind of game for no reason what so ever.

For the Gods sake... When are You going to understand, that WC is too easy, because wars are too simple? Your response to everyone who complains about difficulty is increasing AI ability to gang against player.

This and the fact they could have more realistic internal problems happening.

That is really what this is. Having the AI gang up on someone unrealistically. It's silly and it's an example of the increasing gameyness of this and EU4.

 

[Jorlem]

The main difference is factions are offensive (we gather forces then declare war to achieve something) while coalitions would be defensive (if our liege imprisons, revokes, we all join in on the war against the tyranny of our liege)

That's why I said that I hope the faction mechanic would be adjusted to take advantage of the new mechanics.

This would mean that factions would need to be secret initially, so the ruler couldn't just imprison the leaders as they formed, before anyone else joins, though. Searching out secret factions could be a useful job for the spymaster, so you would do something with him other than just have him steal tech from the Byzantines or sit in your capitol detecting plots.


Edit:

I fail to see how vassal's infamy is any punishment, as liege protects you anyway. Unless your fellow vassals gang against you? And if they can, why not take them out first?

There used to be a plot where vassals could gang up on a vassal that was growing too powerful, and demand that he give up some of his land, and they could ask the king for support. I haven't seen that in ages, so maybe this patch will see it return?

 

[Kanaric]

Egypt actually tried to work with the Crusaders to defeat the Mongols in Persia

And the Crusaders worked with the mongols against the muslims. This has nothing to do with "infamy" or this game mechanic and everything to do with Alliances in CK2 being based on marriage being a bad game mechanic.

Once again, a bad feature given creedence without attacking the correct source of the issue.

Vast empire: give internal problems - paradox solution: ai gangs up on player and other ai

Alliances with muslims and mongols against common enemies?: Change alliances so you can ally with powers outside your religion - Paradox solution: forced infamy game mechanic.

 

[delpiero1234]

I have the feeling that CK II is going down the drain. I personally stopped playing it when it became too buggy a few expansions ago and on top of that the prices for the DLCs are unjustified, especially compared to EU IV DLCs. When do you guys think will PDX stop working on CK II? After Stellaris release or after HoI 4 release?

 

[Rascar Capac]

There used to be a plot where vassals could gang up on a vassal that was growing too powerful, and demand that he give up some of his land, and they could ask the king for support. I haven't seen that in ages, so maybe this patch will see it return?

I've seen that only when I let Abbasids vassalize me as zoroastrian, and just refused. That might work, if original ruler was the one they'd want to install and s/he became independent. Otherwise, wouldn't infamy of liege stay here?

 

[Boucicaut]

I have the feeling that CK II is going down the drain. I personally stopped playing it when it became too buggy a few expansions ago and on top of that the prices for the DLCs are unjustified, especially compared to EU IV DLCs. When do you guys think will PDX stop working on CK II? After Stellaris release or after HoI 4 release?

This is probably the last dlc. Bugs and performance issues have been pretty bad since rajas of india, so hopefully they will improve the situation before closing shop.

You know, many people seem to have forgotten how the game ran so much better before RoI. It was a whole other standard.

 

[delpiero1234]

You know, many people seem to have forgotten how the game ran so much better before RoI. It was a whole other standard.

Exactly. CK II is buggy and does no longer run as smooth as it once used to. EU IV on the other side runs extremely smooth despite lots of DLCs. If CK II becomes fun again through intensive bug-fixing then I'm sure that more people would come back and play the game, I certainly would consider it

 

[Boucicaut]

And the Crusaders worked with the mongols against the muslims. This has nothing to do with "infamy" or this game mechanic and everything to do with Alliances in CK2 being based on marriage being a bad game mechanic.

Once again, a bad feature given creedence without attacking the correct source of the issue.

Vast empire: give internal problems - paradox solution: ai gangs up on player and other ai

Alliances with muslims and mongols against common enemies?: Change alliances so you can ally with powers .outside your religion - Paradox solution: forced infamy game mechanic.

I suppose opportunistic alliances such as the ones between the crusaders and mongols or muslins would be too difficult to implement. Remember CKII's AI is immensely dumb as it is.

Coalitions are probably the best we can get.

 

[theKing1988]

For the Gods sake... When are You going to understand, that WC is too easy, because wars are too simple? Your response to everyone who complains about difficulty is increasing AI ability to gang against player. When medieval ruler wanted to go to war, even against weaker and smaller opponent, he didn't simply send declaration of war and called upon his banners-men. He had to prepare everything- supplies for army, organize his troops into single force, prepare border for troubles, design regent (if he wanted to be present), raise taxes for upkeep...

How is it in CK2? DOW-> raise levies->single pitched battle->occupying provinces until warscore hits 100%. Great.

I so wish that i could give this more than 1 agree. This feature is just treating the symptoms instead of the disease that leads to Snowballing.

 

[WarlordSir]

When does this go into effect?

Or did I miss that post?

 

[brobman22]

When does this go into effect?

Or did I miss that post?

with the release of the next expansion I think

 

[Zarathustra_the]

Will Infamy be moddable and exposed? Will we be able to link actions to infamy ratings, like seduction and dueling and assassination plotting? If yes it could be a worthwhile mechanism to help control the ai...

 

[QuantumInternet]

Probably out of difficulty. They have factions, rivalries, plots, ambitions, viceroyal maluses etc... within Empires and it'd be quite difficult to even come up with another layer of internal issues to add to that.

I do not think the problem is that there is not enough internal strife, but that most strife is insubstantial to the power base of the empire. After a troublesome succession, the new ruler often faces a faction that demands lower crown authority. There might be a revolt, but in the end it will not matter much, because sooner or later the emperor manages to get his vassals under control and just raises it again (never mind that low crown authority is actually not that bad for an empire). Even a faction that messes with succession or aims to put a claimant on the throne will at worst result in a new face for the blob, but nothing substantial. The only thing that is really a threat is an independence revolt. But those are hindered by the fact that it is way to easy to convert all vassals to the same culture and religion, so only remote territories try to get independent and if they succeed are easily gobbled up again by the emperor, once he consolidates his power.

Internal strife does weaken an empire momentarily, but there are few external threats that could take advantage of it. The only ways to take out an empire are either strategically placed kingdom-level cbs (very rare) or focused chipping away duchy by duchy and county by county over centuries (hard, too hard for the AI). So even if the empire is weakened by internal strife, it might loses a county or a duchy to another realm. And once it is back together, it will regain the lost territory unless the attacker was also a powerful blob (which does not solve the problem).

The only way to really prevent blobbing instead of just delaying it as this change is poised to do, would be to add either an internal or external threat against the power base of an empire. At best it would split (and really split, not add to another realm) the empire in two equally powerful realms, so that neither can easily reforge the empire.