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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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At launch, the game seemed a lot harder to blob. Considering I played CK1, I don't think its just the fact I've gotten better at the game. I think the expansions have just made certain things overpowered. Stopping the snowball *is* an important, on this I agree. But I agree with many people here who say that internal stability is the real problem. When you are successful and expanding, internal stability should be pretty solid as you give lands to your trusted commanders. When you have a horrible, low prestige, low diplomacy heir rise to the throne who cannot hold together the massive realm you've built, things should get very rowdy. You might be afraid to declare war, because your vassal levies are minimal. Then, this stagnation of a large realm should lead to intrigue. When your vassals have nothing to do, they should be plotting to raise their standing. If you have low intrigue yourself, there should be a serious threat of being deposed and losing it all. A well timed feast or tournament might be the perfect solution to distract them. As things are now, its simplistic to weather the storm for a few years, waiting for the malus to wear off, and then things are back to normal no matter how unfit you are to be king.

So much of CK2 is about the relationships between you and your vassals. I'd rather have this part of the game fleshed out more than EU code inserted. It feels as if CK2 is already getting too similar to EU4 as things stand. In addition to stability, the snowball problem is really fueled by the fact we are drowning in CB and gold that seem to be added almost every expansion. Adding infamy just gives us an artificial numerical cap to slow expansion down, but doesn't do anything to actually stop how easy it is to hold together a large empire and add to it. Its effectively a speed limit.

I'm interested in seeing how this works out, but I feel there has to have been a better way.

Factions was at the time supposed rto deal with internal troubles, but they have never really worked in Vanilla. The factions originally worked in a stupid way that just had you fight the same people every 5 years, and every vassal always joined the factions even though they liked you. Since this was annoying as heck they changed the formula, but right now factions are a joke you always never have to worry about, and can relatively easily be dealt with.

I actually like the CK 2+ faction system where factions themselves can be friendly or hostile to the ruler. So there can be large factions that aren't an immidiate threat, but as soon as you start pissing them off there is big ttrouble incoming.
 
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Not sure how much I care. I am already involved in wars of the whole Muslim/Tengri/Germanic world vs me
 
Are there any historical examples of coalitions within the timeframe of the game? We already have crusades/jihads.

It happened all the time in India. If one king was getting too powerful the others would band up to stop him. In the Three Empires era, Pratiharas and Palas banded up against Rashtrakuta Empire in 7th and 8th century. When Palas got too uppity, Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas would join up and defeat them. And when Pratiharas emerged as the winner in 9th century, Palas and Rahstrakutas banded up and coordinated attacks against them.

Rajputs are the prime example of this - the incessant fighting between clans and kingdoms after the collapse of Pratihara Empire was not put an to an end until 1576. Even under the later Pratihara Empire they formed coalitions, internal alliances and regional leagues to fight against each other for land and power. The wars between the Kingdom of Mewar (represented in game by duchy of Medapata) and the Kingdom of Marwar (represented in game by duchies of Stravani and Maru) reached a legendary level and whenever one of them got stronger, all the Rajputs would join the other's alliance and push them back.

Another prime example is when Delhi Sultanate was annexing one kingdom after other and overruning majority of India, a whole lot of old classical kingdoms gave up their old rivalries and banded up against them, with the focus on driving Delhi back to the Ganges. They were unsuccessful of course (the division and lack of coordination was still strong), but it happened.
 
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It happened all the time in India. If one king was getting too powerful the others would band up to stop him. In the Three Empires era, Pratiharas and Palas banded up against Rashtrakuta Empire in 7th and 8th century. When Palas got too uppity, Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas would join up and defeat them. And when Pratiharas emerged as the winner in 9th century, Palas and Rahstrakutas banded up and coordinated attacks against them.

Rajputs are the prime example of this - the incessant fighting between clans and kingdoms after the collapse of Pratihara Empire was not put an to an end until 1576. Even under the later Pratihara Empire they formed coalitions, internal alliances and regional leagues to fight against each other for land and power. The wars between the Kingdom of Mewar (represented in game by duchy of Medapata) and the Kingdom of Marwar (represented in game by duchies of Stravani and Maru) reached a legendary level and whenever one of them got stronger, all the Rajputs would join the other's alliance and push them back.

Another prime example is when Delhi Sultanate was annexing one kingdom after other and overruning majority of India, a whole lot of old classical kingdoms gave up their old rivalries and banded up against them, with the focus on driving Delhi back to the Ganges. They were unsuccessful of course (the division and lack of coordination was still strong), but it happened.

Are there any examples in Europe? I know for a fact that when the Mongols conquered Russia, no one in the west could be bothered to send help to Hungary or Poland. The Holy Roman Emperor was too busy trying to fight against the Pope to care about some obscure raiders he had never heard of before. I mean, if the Mongols can conquer half the known world and still not be "infamous" enough for the surrounding countries to ally together, what historical justification is there for this mechanic?
 
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Are there any examples in Europe? I know for a fact that when the Mongols conquered Russia, no one in the west could be bothered to send help to Hungary or Poland. The Holy Roman Emperor was too busy trying to fight against the Pope to care about some obscure raiders he had never heard of before. I mean, if the Mongols can conquer half the known world and still not be "infamous" enough for the surrounding countries to ally together, what historical justification is there for this mechanic?

The idea is that such coalitions did form, but mostly at regional level and almost always exclusively between rulers sharing the same religion and broader culture. My biggest fear is that this will go full bugfest like EU4 after their latest patches: in that game, by 1470, alliances like Burgundy-Novgorod-Ottomans-Yemen-Norway are quite common, as are coalitions in which the likes of Lithuania jump to fight Castille. Highly unrealistic. The idea can work if it does not turn the game into a sandbox of unrealistic randomness like the 1.14 in EU4...
 
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Wow... So, reworking AI marriage strategy, alliance making and anti-snowball mechanic? And that is ONLY the free patch? What could I whine about CK2 after that patch???
 
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The idea is that such coalitions did form, but mostly at regional level and almost always exclusively between rulers sharing the same religion and broader culture. My biggest fear is that this will go full bugfest like EU4 after their latest patches: in that game, by 1470, alliances like Burgundy-Novgorod-Ottomans-Yemen-Norway are quite common, as are coalitions in which the likes of Lithuania jump to fight Castille. Highly unrealistic. The idea can work if it does not turn the game into a sandbox of unrealistic randomness like the 1.14 in EU4...

But did they form? That's what I'm asking. If those coalitions didn't form against the Mongols, the most terrifyingly powerful military force until the advent of industrialized warfare, then did they actually exist?
 
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Something tells me that Zoroastrian/Zune games are going to be much, MUCH easier after this patch... "Hey Byzantine Empire, are you worried that the Abassids just invaded Tunis? Let's set up a defensive alliance!!"
 
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But did they form? That's what I'm asking. If those coalitions didn't form against the Mongols, the most terrifyingly powerful military force until the advent of industrialized warfare, then did they actually exist?

The alliance between Leon and his Muslim neighbours against Castile could be seen as a coalition against Castile's rising power.

Of course, he was excommunicated for doing so...
 
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Fix Flanders.

And let me guess, the AI gains a significant discount over players? This will do nothing to stop major blobs.
 
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The alliance between Leon and his Muslim neighbours against Castile could be seen as a coalition against Castile's rising power.

Of course, he was excommunicated for doing so...

If there are aspects like that in the game, that will be awesome. If the coalition CtA can be declined (at the cost of not being welcome into a coalition against the same target for X years and a hefty prestige cost, for example) if you decide that you don't want to face e.g. excommunication when the time comes, it would be great. However, if it does not work like that and people start getting called into irrelevant holy wars, or the wrong side of a holy war, it will be disappointing.
 
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CK2 still need a better peace/cb system. Wars are stupid and nonsensical, someone invades, you win and occupy his land, only for it to let you say "Ha! You lost!" even if you have claims on his stuff. You have to peace him out, then declare again, then siege it all again. It is the stupidest thing in this game and it needs to go away.

This is, again and again, one of the MANY things CK1 did better.
 
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THIS WILL BE WORST CHANGE EVER, BUT CK2 IS NOT F***ING EU4 (WTF Invincible defeated army and AE)
The core of CK2 is CHARACTERS , BUT AE is bound to COUNTRY? This puts the cart before the horse.

this 1000 times. idk what paradox thinks they're doing here but this isn't EU4. EU4 is great and I love it but it's a different game. medieval Europe had no concept of the balance of power. there shouldn't be coalitions.
 
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It is affected by that a little but mostly it's about realpolitik. "You can kill me? Then I'm gonna try to defend me "

And can you only be the target of a single coalition?

If so, that needs to be re-thought. It is completely ridiculous that a nation that exclusively takes land from the "heathens" ends up facing a coalition of those heathens -and- neighboring nations of their own religion.

Charlemagne taking Iberia from the Muslims would make him a HERO among the Christian world, not a feared warmonger.

That would be completely gamey and immersion-killing. If the system doesn't avoid that situation, the system doesn't work.
 
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Asking my earlier question again @Groogy how moddable will this be? Will we be able to mod targeted decisions into the infamy system ?
 
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CK2 was a cool game, was. Now it will be a simply clone of EU4. Instead of fixing issues paradox decided to import EU4 features into this game.
 
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My preferred methods to handle the snowballing effect of large empires:
  • lower vassal/demesne limits, and/or make it so they are less dependent on monarch tier (to allow the rulers of small realms/duchies to govern their realms more efficiently than the rulers of large empires, strengthening small and mid-size realms and weakening larger ones)
  • increase the chance of factions forming in large empires, especially those with centrifugal effects (i.e. independence, lower authority)
  • introduce a size factor when determining the total amount of levies that can be raised (to limit the snowballing effects of troop strength)
  • don't have retinue caps scale so much with number of provinces (to avoid people switching back to retinue-based armies again)
Note how none of these methods would require the introduction of an entirely new mechanic that has to be tested extensively and/or has to be rebalanced anew with every single patch.
 
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