Dev Diary 11: Stopping The Snowball

[brobman22]

Assuming the Infamy decay is linear, the screenshot tells us that the poor Sultan has to wait almost 40 years until he can think about declaring war again, because of one single successful invasion. If realms remain as stable as before, that is 40 years of doing almost nothing, but watching the game as it crawls along. Right now, even the 10 year truce timer can feel like eternity near the end of the game. I cannot imagine any way this could be fun.

And it can only be a good feature if it adds fun to the game. If you have a better imagination than me, please enlighten me how you think that it could possibly improve your enjoyment of the game.

To make matters worse, I do not think it can actually stop the snowball, it just slows it down.

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

That's why its so slow to decay the Seljuk's have a massive military potential which the screenshot shows us that he currently has 15k levies now I don't know if military potential means how many troops you have at the moment or how many you can have but if its how many you have at the moment then I assume that means If he loses all of them his infamy will decay faster but that is just an assumption and hopefully next weeks DD will explain more specifically about how infamy works so I can have more information to make my decision on whether or not this is a bad idea

 

[TheStrangerOrg]

You are fixing a problem that does not exist.

Snowballing has it's own problems that actually being good at the game can fix, such as internal problems, other religions, the byzantine empire. Snowballing is, quite frankly, extremely difficult unless you are an incredibly good player.

i disagree, i think its fairly easy to go from count to emperor within 4 generations, if youre a bit lucky you can do it within 1, but otherwise you should always be able to achieve it within 4. And when you hit that point, the game becomes kinda bland, because its way too easy to keep factions happy and supress the odd revolt that does happen, and there is no external threat save the mongols or another scripted invader.

that said, while they bring this feature solely as an anti-blob measure, im truly hoping it will be more, that they will use this feature to flesh out another layer in diplomatic interactions. I hope it will work or get to work something like this

the ai has a specific goal in mind (for example gain X title or X territory) and a more general idea of what it's interests are. The AI will then proceed to calculate who the biggest obstacles are in his path to achieve that, and who has the power to damage his interests. The AI will then calculate if forming an alliance with another party will improve the likelyhood of him achieving his goals or safeguarding his interests. If so, he will try to form or be willing to form a coalition/alliance with said party. And this would be recalculated anytime a significant powershift happens in the regio or the alliance doesnt yield any benefits after a period of time.

but i guess its wishful thinking

 

[TheStrangerOrg]

Coalitions simply do not make sense from a time period perspective unless they had to do with matters of faith. This is an unfortunate change.

the name coalition may have a confusing effect, but what they describe how it will work most definitely makes sense within the time period as long as its regional.

 

[dilby_]

Please don't do this its a horrendous decision and it seems like there must be some sort of major misunderstanding and complete change in philosophy of the development of Crusader Kings 2 which only serves to delay those who want to blob out their holdings and damage those who wish to roleplay.

 

[Dracko81]

damage those who wish to roleplay

In what way would it do this?

 

[Finnway]

Why are people so upset? You can always disable it with mods. Most characters won't be affected by this anyways. It's really just for large realms (France, HRE) or characters that blob really quickly (i.e. Norse Pagans in 867).

 

[Slayen]

Why are people so upset? You can always disable it with mods.

Ignoring that we can't yet say that with 100% certainty, defending a bad feature by saying "you can just mod it out" is a very poor defense.

This argument also doesn't much help those who don't like it and actually like to play Ironman mode for achievements.

I personally don't, but I can empathize with those that do.

 

[brobman22]

Ignoring that we can't yet say that with 100% certainty, defending a bad feature by saying "you can just mod it out" is a very poor defense.

This argument also doesn't much help those who don't like it and actually like to play Ironman mode for achievements.

I personally don't, but I can empathize with those that do.

But how do you know its bad?

 

[Finnway]

This is a ridiculously awful idea for tackling expansion. They already have the tools for this in the game (factions, etc...), they just need to be improved upon. The threat to expansion should be from within not from outside.

It should be both, actually.

I support coalitions and hope they will also make factions effective.

I agree. You need both. Sooner or later, players will find away to game the system. We're still waiting on a dev diary about an updated faction system, but I'm willing to give Paradox the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Finnway]

This argument also doesn't much help those who don't like it and actually like to play Ironman mode for achievements.

I personally don't, but I can empathize with those that do.

Dumb argument. I have played Iron-Man. But I don't anymore because it's so damn easy it's boring. Why would I want to play a 700 year campaign when it only takes 200 years to become the most powerful realm on the map? After that, it's just a cake-walk.

 

[CplKatie]

People aren't going to stop because the game got harder to world conquest. There is not less incentive to play the game. Your argument is flawed because you based it around not being able to expand, this is false. You can expand.

Take it from someone has ~3,000 hrs of CK2 and ~200 hr of EU4 under their belt, this mechanic isn't going to stop me from playing it, nor will it stop you. Just because it is based on a mechanic from another game, does not mean it functions the same.

You don't like the mechanic as an idea, well guess what either do I, but making up nonsense based on no evidence, please.

Unless they prevent it, coalitions will only make expanding much much faster and easier. They are essentially creating another form of adventurer bankroll for a skilled player. Its just a matter of understanding that the game plays ALOT off your standing army value and has no care in the world for the 1 billion gold you happen to have. If anything they just enabled easy mode snowballing. I can't wait to do a lets play with this new form of snowballing.

 

[Slayen]

But how do you know its bad?

I don't know for certain that it will be. But, ss things look at this very moment, from the details give, the screenshots, and the general Idea of the mechanic, it is one which I do not believe will solve the issue that it claims it was designed to stop and will simply add an un-needed level of annoyance.

It might end up working great and if so I will be more than happy to be wrong. But until then I remain highly HIGHLY skeptical.

Dumb argument. I have played Iron-Man. But I don't anymore because it's so damn easy it's boring. Why would I want to play a 700 year campaign when it only takes 100 years to become the most powerful realm on the map? After that, it's just a cake-walk.

You do realize that nothing you just said in any way invalidates what anything you just quoted right?

"You can just mod it out" is till a really, really shitty argument to use against someone who might not like a particular mechanic.

To put it another way, this would be like saying to those who are tired of seduction shenanigans to stop complaining because you can just mod it.

 

[brobman22]

I don't know for certain that it will be. But, ss things look at this very moment, from the details give, the screenshots, and the general Idea of the mechanic, it is one which I do not believe will solve the issue that it claims it was designed to stop and will simply add an un-needed level of annoyance.

It might end up working great and if so I will be more than happy to be wrong. But until then I remain highly HIGHLY skeptical.

You mean the one DD has given you everything you need to know about this new mechanic which could have a lot of possibilities but it is your opinion so whatever.

 

[Slayen]

You mean the one DD has given you everything you need to know about this new mechanic which could have a lot of possibilities.

..... oh for the love of crikey.

No, of course this DD does not tell me everything I need to know. I even made a post firing off a list of all the things that had not been answered by the DD that I had concerns about.

Still, I am human (last I checked), and thus am prone to forming opinions. And in this case, based on the material currently available, it is not a positive one.

 

[brobman22]

..... oh for the love of crikey.

No, of course this DD does not tell me everything I need to know. I even made a post firing off a list of all the things that had not been answered by the DD that I had concerns about.

Still, I am human (last I checked), and thus am prone to forming opinions. And in this case, based on the material currently available, it is not a positive one.

Yeah but why is it not a positive one because based off the info in this DD It seems fine

 

[Finnway]

You do realize that nothing you just said in any way invalidates what anything you just quoted right?

LOL. I guess you don't read your own posts?

This argument also doesn't much help those who don't like it and actually like to play Ironman mode for achievements.

I personally don't, but I can empathize with those that do.

 

[Dracko81]

Unless they prevent it, coalitions will only make expanding much much faster and easier. They are essentially creating another form of adventurer bankroll for a skilled player. Its just a matter of understanding that the game plays ALOT off your standing army value and has no care in the world for the 1 billion gold you happen to have. If anything they just enabled easy mode snowballing. I can't wait to do a lets play with this new form of snowballing.

Easier? So now needing to actually spend all that gold you have acquired to support mercenaries - that you currently don't need - means it is faster and easier to conquer your neighbours.

Still will be possible, but needing to hire mercs to do the job you didn't need to do before isn't easier.

You need to remember there has not been any mention of changing CB's. So winning against a large coalition doesn't mean you get to conquer them all, just what you declared war for. You are not going to have an eaiser time because you have cash, it will be harder, because you actually have to spend the cash.

 

[Bobby Rifle]

Agree with all the concerns here. I'm about 500 years into a game (started as the Count of Friesland with the Charlemagne start, worked up to King of Pomerania) and have the blue blob sitting across from me, having swallowed up Italy, Bavaria, Bohemia, the east bank of the Vistula (apparently I'd weakened Poland enough to where a Bohemian count could pick off Mazovia), northeast Spain and present-day Tunisia/Libya. It hasn't seen a major rebellion in about a century.

Between that and Lithuania formed to my east, there really isn't anywhere for me to blob further (I suppose I could start picking off random Khazar counties, but I like to keep the realm fairly compact. I've spun off Friesland and a random Irish county that I'd inherited) for the next 200 years.

 

[QuantumInternet]

You mean the one DD has given you everything you need to know about this new mechanic which could have a lot of possibilities but it is your opinion so whatever.

I agree that there are a lot of possibilities, but from that one DD we can infer that most of those are not implemented yet:
- Infamy appears to be global (why else would the HRE care about the invasion of Armenia)
- We see that rulers of different religions and cultures are in one coalition, meaning those are unlikely to have an influence
- Infamy can be acquired in one war and can require a century to get rid off.
- Peaceful inheritance will also cause Infamy - a tie to CBs is therefore unlikely

So it very much looks like empires will play even more boring than before, because they will be locked into the Declare War -> Stomp Neighbor -> Wait 30 years -> Declare War cycle. The only thing that remains to be seen is what happens if the empire steps over an imaginary line, it could either just need to wait longer afterwards or it could be torn apart by multiple offensive coalition wars.

 

[Slayen]

Yeah but why is it not a positive one because based off the info in this DD It seems fine

I don't have a positive opinion because I don't like what I see so far.

Not sure why this is hard to grasp.

LOL. I guess you don't read your own posts?

And now you have lost me.

Lets just go over the chain here:

Say that people shouldn't complain because it can be modded out.

I say that is a bad argument because moding does nothing to help those who like to play for achievements.

You then say I made a dumb argument because you don't play Ironman because it's too easy to expand and you then get board.

I then point out how that doesn't actually change anything.

And then you say LOL and that I don't read my own posts.



At this point I'm almost feeling like we are having two different conversions here.