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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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So after we manage to get some badboy, say 42 like The Heroic Lion apparently got for taking one kingdom, will there be ANYTHING for us to do other than wait 50 years for it to tick down, watching netflix on our phone? MAYBE fight one faction war uppon each sucession and if you're pagan/tribal raid everyone?
This doesn't seem to discourage expansion or make it harder, it looks like it will just make everything SO much more tedious without making it any more interesting or strategic.
 
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Come to think of it, this will lead to the world hating a new ruler because his father was an aggressive conqueror, but his vassals forgetting that said father had, last month, promoted them from common courtier to duke just for being their best friend. Kinda... surreal, when you think about it too deeply.
 
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Blastaz said:
Georgia is in the coalition on the front page which suggests it is cross religion. Once that mistake is allowed all others are possible...
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Provide me with evidence that it would never have happened.

Here's the kicker, you can't. Just because something didn't happen - reforming religions - doesn't mean it could not of happened.
 
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If you want to increase the difficulty of blobbing, just increase the penalties for wrong religion/culture. That would make it very difficult to govern large swaths of land until you "bring them into the fold".

That change would make things more interesting. This AE system sounds like it will just make things more tedious.
 
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Dracko81 said:
Provide me with evidence that it would never have happened.

Here's the kicker, you can't. Just because something didn't happen - reforming religions - doesn't mean it could not of happened.
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Provide me with evidence that it happening would be fun.


Here's the kicker, I'm waiting...
 
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Anti-blob mechanics are supposed to be fun?

What do you want a mini game to tie you over while you wait?

Playing the game is supposed to be fun, working outside the scope of the game to conquer the world should be difficult to achieve. So if difficult is fun to you then this mechanic will be fun.
 
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Dracko81 said:
Anti-blob mechanics are supposed to be fun?

What do you want a mini game to tie you over while you wait?

Playing the game is supposed to be fun, working outside the scope of the game to conquer the world should be difficult to achieve. So if difficult is fun to you then this mechanic will be fun.
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Well, there in lies a problem. This mechanic doesn't add difficulty. It just adds time. It's the equivalent of when an action game just ups the enemy hit points at higher difficulty and calls it a day. It doesn't make the fights harder, it just makes them take longer.
 
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Slayen said:
Well, there in lies a problem. This mechanic doesn't add difficulty. It just adds time.
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Another reason why I believe strengthening factions would be the natural anti blob mechanics. Dangerous factions are fun. You have to check on wrong vassals' religion and culture, give titles away, arrange marriages, bribe, send children to be educated, use your spymaster wisely, etc.

It certainly passes the time. Moreover, there is always the prospect of a rebellion on the horizon, which is always reason enough to get prepared and rethink buildings and military within the realm.
 
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It does make the fights harder, you now have to expand through attacking multiple targets at once. Or you don't attack, the choice is yours.

Coalitions don't look like they stop you from declaring war, just makes it harder to win a war vs all those targets.

If you choose to wait, that is your decision.
 
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another interesting historical example of coalitions being formed between christians, crusaders even and muslims, who prior had defeated those christians in battle:
In 1104 he (kilij arslan) resumed once more his war with the Danishmends who were now weakened after the death of Malik Ghazi, demanding half the ransom gained for Bohemund. As a result Bohemund allied with the Danishmends against Rüm and the Byzantines.

I think coalitions should be an interesting political-military layer for the game. I should allow smaller realms to survive in the shadow of stronger realms. But I hope it will be fleshed out more, because just like the tribute system is a very nice addition, its also quite bland and lacking in depth. So i hope they will make it more than just an anti-blob mechanic, but rather a full new layer of interaction for the player. Perhaps even with the possibility for some more flexible diplomacy that allows for forming treaties to include trade concessions, promises of land or whatever.
 
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TheStrangerOrg said:
another interesting historical example of coalitions being formed between christians, crusaders even and muslims, who prior had defeated those christians in battle:
In 1104 he (kilij arslan) resumed once more his war with the Danishmends who were now weakened after the death of Malik Ghazi, demanding half the ransom gained for Bohemund. As a result Bohemund allied with the Danishmends against Rüm and the Byzantines.
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That's not a coalition, it's just an alliance.
 
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Duke of Awesome said:
That's not a coalition, it's just an alliance.
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well, there doesnt really existed such a difference between alliances and coalitions as it is made in ck2, but this alliance as you call it is more like what appears coalitions will be like in the next patch

because in ck2 an alliance comes from marriage or from blood. There were no marriage or blood ties between bohemund and the danishmends, so its not a traditional ck2 alliance.

Rather, the alliance was the result of both leaders concern about their safety if Kilij Arslan would become too powerful. At the same time, the byzantine emperor liked to play everyone out against each other and sided with the crusaders at one time, and the rum sultans at another, as long as it benefited his goals, he allied with whomever he pleased. As he proved when escorted the crusaders to nicaea, and then fearing they would not hand over the city to him after taking it, made a seperate deal with the muslim garrison, and then took the city by intrigue for himself. This is very much what coalitions could be like, if infamy becomes a relative factor, distance would be the most important factor, military/economic strength compared to rivals another, rank title etc.

the above example of the alliance between bohemund and the danishmends would never have been possible in ck2 prior to this feature. but now it might be, if they do it right.
 
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Zooboss said:
I'll agree that it could use a facelift, vut I also think that sometimes there's way too much information in CK2 to be easily displayed.

Do you really need to know which buildings are in each holding of the province (easily, from the province screen)? What would Constantinople look like? 5/6 holdings each with at least 5 buildings after a couple decades. That's at least 25 buildings you want to cram into the province information along with everything that's already there.
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No I meant building like city, temple, trade post ect. Not the sub buildings
 
Groogy said:
If a vassal conquers stuff outside the realm you gain 50% of the infamy he generates. (this propagates up so if a count of a duke conquers something, the duke gets 50%, the king 25%, the emperor 12.5%)

And no, Infamy stays over generations. You can't be a dick then die and think you will get away with it.
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Well I do not agree with this. Why would what my vassals do effect me ?. Yes I am their King and what not. But they should be the one targeted fully and It should not have anything to do with me unless they are family.

Also what does my Grandfathers actions have to do with mine.. I hightly doubt people would remember what your grandfather did when you become King and even if you did.. what if you are not the same as he was or you became a more friendly person. Having infamy last though generations is also something I do not agree with. because my Grandfathers actions should not really effect how people view me. Yeah he was a Ass.. But what if i am not the same type of person. Why would everyone remember the bad and not have a way to forget ?

in the case of it lasting generations..maybe a event could fire that allows everything to be forgiven so you can start over ?
 
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Arrowfiend said:
Because rulers were concerned with their realm and keeping their vassals from rebelling rather than global politics. Napoleonic-style coalitions simply didn't exist.
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Richard the Lionhearted was much more concerned about global politics than English vassals ... the coalition against Richard is a perfect example of the "defensive" coalition listed in this DD. Saying Napoleonic-style coalitions simply did not exist is a simplistic dog whistle that pays no heed to the reality as given in this DD so far.

The greatest attempt at multiple rulers working together towards a common goal were the Crusades, and even then many rulers were doing so out of self-interest. Not to mention all of said rulers were of the same religion (Catholicism), said religion having a spiritual leader to unify behind (the Pope). In the screenshot, we see rulers from various different religions teaming up together, which simply didn't happen.
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Sorry but you are wrong here. The Khazars and the ERE teamed up to fight the Sunnis. The Sunnis teamed up with local Christians to fight the Khazars, the Sunnis and the Khazars even teamed up at times... all in one little area of the map called: Georgia today.

These coalitions are purely defensive and they do not operate as NATO today or the Triple Entente of the WW1 era. This game is not being re-written into AH's Diplomacy or The Third Reich; it isn't even being turned into EU despite the perception of some that it is.
 
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Finally! I've been waiting for something like this for almost 4 years.
 
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This will actually be okay, if they make infamy region- and character-specific. To stop stuff like Europeans coalitioning against a crusade winner.
 
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Regarding the modding aspect that some people have been asking about: Based on the moddability of existing diplomatic interactions (including the "Declare War" and "Offer Peace" buttons and the currently disabled "Assassinate" button that can be enabled if you just change one line in the defines) it will likely be possible to completely disable the "Join Existing Coalition/Start Coalition" interaction, and I assume that some aspects of Infamy gain/decay will be moddable; though it will very likely not be possible to make it a non-global value unless it is already modelled as that.

I *think* you could reduce some of the oddness that has been mentioned (e.g. Catholic Europe joining the Coalition against the crusade winner because he got Infamy from that) by making your own "Join Existing Coalition/Start Coalition" (assuming the commands are accessible to modders) interaction that requires e.g. having the "Attacked co-religionist/my neighbour/me" opinion to join; however, unless you can make the Coalition CtA declineable (and can add AI rationality to that choice) it could still lead to cases where your co-religionists (or someone from a completely different religion) oppose your holy wars against someone at the far side of your empire that they should not care about.
 
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Yxklyx said:
It sure made sense when my England created Jerusalem after a Crusade - which I then had to to let go. It was a good idea - it was there from the first release I think.



It took them about 2 years to get it right though no? So, we're all going to have a somewhat broken game for a while.

This new change is going to severely damage the flavor of the game - and it's 100% not needed because you can get the same results with opinion modifiers and serious factions - something that EU4 does not have the luxury to make use of.
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Well I respectfully disagree, coalitions have always been fine in EU4 in my opinion. I think there should definitely be some sort of coalition system in CK2 too, but I don't know if this new system is ideal.
 
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